Wisdom of a seer
by kalinzar
Summary: About a week before halloween James decides to consult a real seer about the prophecy. This has some interesting results. Very different timeline, but canon characters. Read and find out what real foreknowledge can do:
1. Attack on Lionfire Hall

_A/N: Sadly enough I did not manage to get the rights of Harry Potter before publishing this story._

**Attack at Lionfire Hall**

James was wandering over the battlements of the inner wall of Lionfire Hall. The wall was easily sixty feet high and twenty feet wide and surrounded all the buildings that formed the ancestral home of the Potters. Several of the larger buildings were actually attached to the inner side of the wall, but others stood free. In the long shadows of the setting sun it almost looked like a spooky miniature village.

On the other side of the wall was an extensive garden filled with trees, statues and a few ponds. Then, about five hundred feet away from the inner wall was the even bigger outer wall. Often people mentioned how Hogwarts and Gringotts were the safest places of the United Kingdom. But James knew better. When Lionfire Hall was in its defensive configuration it was pretty much invulnerable.

Of course, it also made it a pain to receive visitors, because he needed to give every single visitor access by a fifteen minute ritual. Sirius, Remus and Peter usually just stayed for a couple of days each time. Beside that, the house elves had a lot of trouble with their shopping. So Timmy and Jenny only went out once a month.

Also, floo travel from and to the Hall was impossible right now. And only specially designated portkeys made by him or Lily could pass the wards.

Still, despite all those irritating drawbacks, Lionfire Hall had been locked down for over a year now. Pretty much since the birth of his little son Harry. A little more then a month ago they had celebrated his first birthday. Sadly only the marauders and the Longbottoms had visited them because of all the wards that had to be passed.

His mind wandered back to that afternoon a year ago. Harry had just been a week old when Lily and he received a summon from Dumbledore, their former headmaster and of course the leader of the Order of the Phoenix.

He remembered how surprised he had been when they arrived at his office and the headmaster's eyes had not even twinkled. Of course, as soon as the Longbottoms arrived he quickly learned the reason for that. He could still see, even feel, the words of the prophecy in his mind:

_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..." _

Both Lily and he had never really cared about divination. But they had to agree with Dumbledore that they could not ignore this prophecy. Frank and Alice Longbottom were also members of the order. And just like them, they had defied the dark lord three times. Strange enough their own son, Neville, was also born at the end of July. One day before Harry. Apparently, one of them had the potential to destroy Voldemort. The dark lord that had run his terror almost unchecked through Britain's wizarding world, despite Dumbledore's best attempts to stop him.

It was an odd idea to him that Harry might have that kind of power, although he had already surprised his parents a few times with accidental magic. Mostly summoning his stuffed marauder toys towards himself, but still… it was impressive. Yet, at that afternoon in the headmaster's office he had wanted to dismiss the idea until Dumbledore mentioned that a death eater had overheard the first part of the prophecy before his brother had tossed him out of the Hogs Head tavern.

That changed things… A lot.

They had immediately returned to Lionfire Hall and activated the defensive spells and wards. The Longbottoms had simply hidden Longbottom Manor behind a fidelius charm. Dumbledore had volunteered as their secret keeper. It was a much easier way to defend against the dark lord. And much more comfortable since they could just add their friends to the wards. But it was also more vulnerable. If Dumbledore somehow told the secret to a death eater he would be able to simply walk inside the manor. Of course, that was unlikely. But another risk was often overlooked for this charm. If Dumbledore died during the war all people that learned the location of Longbottom Manor from him would become secret keepers. And although James could not imagine a force strong enough to kill Albus Dumbledore it was still a risk. They were at war after all, and Dumbledore was not the type to avoid the frontlines.

He was interrupted in his musings by soft footsteps and a voice: "Hey James, I just received a message from Dumbledore."

Turning around he saw his wife standing there. As always he had trouble tearing his eyes away from her lovely green eyes. Harry's eyes were just the same by now, although they had been blue at his birth. However, right now those lovely eyes looked worried.

"What's wrong Lily? Did anything happen to your sister?" She barely talked to her sister anymore. But after both their parents were killed by death eaters Lily's sister Petunia was their only living relative. They had offered her the protection of Lionfire Hall, but she and her husband had frantically refused.

"No." Lily replied, now softy crying. "Dumbledore told me he has a death eater spy. And apparently that spy told him that Voldemort decided the prophecy is about our Harry."

James stiffened for a few seconds before he stepped forward and enclosed Lily in his arms. "Ssst, it is okay. He can not touch us here. We are safe at the Hall." He wished his parents had never left that safety. They had died two years ago when visiting Diagon Alley. He could have used them now.

"But…" Lily stammered, "Can it be really safe enough? When Voldemort wants to get in? You know how powerful he is."

Yes, he knew that. After three narrow escapes. But he had faith in Lionfire Hall. "In all the history of our family none of our enemies ever came past the outer wall. And even if they did, we have quite a few surprises waiting for them." He tried to reassure both Lily and himself. Sadly, the formidable fortress of Lionfire Hall had not kept the Potters alive. Like Dumbledore, they were made to man the frontlines, and many of them died there. Two of his uncles without leaving any children. Now, his own little family was all that remained of the once large family.

"Did Dumbledore say anything else?" James asked.

"It seems the dark lord only knows the first two lines of the prophecy. So just enough to find out about our Harry." Lily replied.

James nodded, it would have been much better if that stupid death eater spy had only heard the last two lines. If he ever found out who reported that part of the prophecy to Voldemort there would be hell to pay. Suddenly, a strange thought entered his mind. Lily noticed somehow and softly she asked: "What's the matter James?"

"I was wondering if Voldemort was much of a seer." He started to explain and when Lily only frowned: "Then I wondered how much Dumbledore really knows about divination. I mean, I thought he disliked the subject?"

Lily shrugged: "I think he mentioned that sometime yeah, but why does it matter? I do not really care about divination either. But the prophecy seems clear enough, and if Voldemort believes it means our Harry it does not really matter anyhow."

James slowly shook his head: "No, that is not really true. Prophecies are always unclear for the untrained eye. A real seer could probably make more sense of it. Although they are hard to find… I think there is one in Australia. Might have to look that up though. I can not believe I did not think of this before."

Lily blinked a few times and he could almost hear the wheels in her head turning around. Eventually she admitted: "It is probably a muggleborn thing. But why should we care about what a seer thinks of it?"

"Because he could fill in the blanks so to speak. Maybe give us an idea of what this 'power the dark lord knows not' and stuff like that." James tried to explain.

"Oh, I see." Lily nodded, before she suddenly turned serious again: "But right now it will not really help us. Right? I mean, whatever power Harry has there is no way that he is going to stop the dark lord until he at least has his NEWTs."

James chuckled at the idea of their one year old son defeating the dark lord somehow. It was ridiculous of course. "True enough. But as I said, we will be safe enough here."

Lily was obviously not convinced because she asked: "Are you sure we can not do a fidelius charm? Just to be sure?" Like Dumbledore, she put a lot of faith in that particular charm. James himself had more faith in the deathly wards of Lionfire Hall.

He shook his head: "No, it will interfere with the wards of the Hall. But as I said there is no reason to be afraid."

With a sigh she said: "Well, I guess you know. Anyway, if you do not mind I will keep working on those rings for a while. I think I almost got them done."

"Good idea, if only because we will have to move outside sometime. They will be useful then." James agreed. His brilliant wife was trying to add a modified portkey charm to both their wedding rings and a small necklace that she was going to give to Harry. If one of them would activate their own portkey it would immediately transport all three of them to a save location. Even if they were in different locations to begin with.

After a short goodbye kiss Lily turned around to walk back to her study. Most likely she would go and look at Harry first. Although Jenny, their female house elf, was most likely sitting at his crib.

Lily was only three steps away when suddenly a loud gong sounded. She turned sharply around and asked: "What is that?"

James was also turning around, trying to find the source of the noise. He had never heard it before, but it was unlikely to be a good sign.

Any doubts were erased when Timmy the house elf appeared between them with a loud pop. In his squeaky voice he shouted: "The main gate is under attack by a wizard."

James cursed before he ran into that direction. Lily did not even reprimand him for his curse, which she had done quite a lot since Harry was born.

After a short run they reached a spot from which they could see the main gate inside the outer wall. The huge wooden gates were glowing in a soft yellow light.

"Are they burning?" Lily asked, panic obvious in her voice.  
"No, the wards are fending off attacks. Nothing too serious yet." James replied, hopefully his voice was a bit calmer. Once, when he was about fifteen, his father had asked him and Sirius to bombard the gate with spells. They had done their best but all their spells had failed to make an impression. Of course, they were only two teenagers at the time… but none the less it was shocking to see those gates yellow after only seconds. If they turned red there would be a serious risk of them breaking down. "Timmy? How bad is it?"

The house elf was linked to the wards somehow. He squeaked: "Not too bad. The gate can hold like this for a week or so. The wards on it are the strongest one we haves. Oh, Jenny is watching over young master Potter."

James nodded, it was at times like this that he was happy that Timmy and Jenny were part of the family instead of slaves like many of their fellow house elves. If only because of the better speech patterns.

It seemed their attacker realised how strong the gate wards were, because suddenly the yellow glow disappeared. "You think he gave up?" James wondered.

"Voldemort? Highly unlikely." Lily replied softly.

Sure enough only seconds later large balls of orange energy started flying over the wall, only to splatter apart harmlessly against the sphere formed outer ward that covered all of the estate. It even continued below the ground. The orange balls combined with the blue parts of the ward that showed up on impact created a nice firework show. Especially because every second a new orange ball crashed into the wards. Most at exactly the same spot.  
"This is worse master James." Timmy said, "If he keeps doing this for five hours or so the ward will most likely go down."

James blinked: "Five hours? That is impossible. Those wards resisted a small dark army for twenty hours until reinforcements arrived and swept them away back in 1645."

Timmy just shrugged and Lily whispered: "Even Voldemort can not use that much energy for five hours in a row… right?"

"I certainly hope so." James agreed. He was still shocked that one wizard could even handle that much energy for five seconds. Let alone five hours. But for now the rain of orange balls kept coming.

"If he is still doing this in thirty minutes we will activate our other defences." James continued, thinking about all the catapults and other surprises hidden between the outer and inner walls.

Timmy nodded grimly and Lily started to ask about those defences when suddenly the orange balls started appearing about a much larger area. All of the northern side of the wall was now attacked. Or the air above it at least.

"Merlin's foggiest crystal ball!" He shouted, "This is impossible!"

"Timmy? How long?" Lily asked, her voice almost as squeaky as the house elves reply of: "Maybe an hour if we are lucky."

"Are you sure there is only one attacker?" James asked. Timmy only nodded. Silently James had to admit that he was impressed by the sheer power that Voldemort was showing. Of course, he would never admit that out loud. Eventually he said: "Activate the defences in twenty minutes. Hopefully he is a bit tired by then."

Right now Voldemort would only laugh about their defences. It made him feel oddly vulnerable. But this amount of power wielded by one wizard was unheard of. Suddenly he wondered what that would mean for Harry, if he really was supposed to beat this monster someday.

Then, suddenly, the attacks stopped. All at once the air above the wall turned to a dull black now that the sun had finally set and Voldemort was not providing his light show anymore. Seconds later Timmy said: "He's gone. Apparated away."

Lily's voice was shaking a bit when she said: "James? We need to think of something. This was just a test run, he will be back."

He was not quite sure of his own voice when he replied: "Yes. I agree. Let's send an owl to Dumbledore… and maybe to the Longbottoms as well. I do not want to leave the Hall right now."

Lily nodded in agreement and he asked: "Timmy? How long for the wards to recharge?"

"About twenty minutes on the main gates. Maybe an hour on the outer ward." The elf answered calmly. Strange enough he seemed more at ease than both Lily and James.

James nodded: "Right. Lily, if you go check on Harry I will send the owls and add some encoded portkeys. I'll meet you at Harry's room after that."

It would take the owls a couple of hours to reach Dumbledore and the Longbottoms. Just to be sure he would send a message to Sirius as well. Hopefully Voldemort would not return before that time.

_A/N: Here we go again. A very different setting this time. Let me know what you think of it. Hopefully I will be able to provide weekly updates once more._

_After some complaints about the way I handled reviews and an insane growth of the number of reviews I decided to create a forum on which I reply to reviews. It can be found by following the link in my profile._

_Of course I hope people will still review on this website;) After all, I think a high review count attracts new readers and as an author that only makes me happy._


	2. A new plan

**A new plan**

A gong sounded to sign the arrival of their first guest. Only seconds later a small door at the side of the entrance hall opened to reveal Sirius Black. If he had been an intruder Timmy would not have opened the door, another layer of defence. Yet James had to admit that it all seemed a lot less impressive tonight. The good looking man that entered the hall was smiling, as he did most of the time. Lily sometimes mentioned she thought it odd that Sirius was always so cheerful after such a hard youth. Usually those comments were followed by a remark about how he would never grow up. Personally, James sometimes wondered about that as well. But then, nobody really expected that he himself would ever grow up. Until Lily, and even more importantly Harry, changed all that.

"Hey Prongs, what's going on?" Sirius asked cheerfully. Obviously, the one word letter he received had been no reason to suspect anything. Of course, they usually sent short letters… so maybe that was not too surprising.

"Voldemort paid us a visit today." James simply replied, a lot less cheerful than his best mate.

There was a short look of shock or maybe surprise in Sirius' eyes before he grinned again: "I guess he threw a tantrum when he realized he did not stand a chance against the wards?"

Another gong sounded but James replied anyway: "Possible. I figured it would be a bad idea to move to the outer wall. But he had the outer gate glowing yellow in a matter of minutes."

Sirius blinked in surprise at that. Most likely he was also thinking about that day long ago when both of them had tried to attack the gate. Before he could make a comment on the news another voice sounded from behind James: "Hey James, hey Sirius. How are you guys doing?"

James turned around to Frank Longbottom's voice. The tall dark haired man was polite as always, yet he was also a fierce fighter on the battlefield. His wife, round-faced and shy Alice, also was unrecognisable as soon as she charged into a fight. She was carrying a small white bundle and Sirius and James moved over to her to get a glimpse of Neville instead of replying to Franks greeting.

"Aww… he is asleep." Sirius almost managed to hide his disappointment. He often mentioned that he did not care about babies, but everyone who had seen him making silly faces and noises to Harry or Neville knew better.

"And he will stay asleep." Alice replied rather firm although her eyes never left her son. Like Lily she did not always approve of too many 'marauderism' near her baby. It looked like they were afraid it would catch or something like that. "He was a bit ill today; otherwise I would have left him with Augusta."

"Why don't you bring him to the nursery? Lily is just checking on Harry. And I am sure Jenny would love to look after Neville as well while we talk." James suggested. Alice sharply looked up. Apparently she knew there was something wrong now. After a few seconds she simply nodded and walked away.

"Is there a problem James?" Frank wanted to know.

"I say there is! V-" Sirius started, but James interrupted him: "I'd rather wait for Albus. That way I only have to explain it once."

Sirius pouted and tried his sad puppy eyes on James. But although Sirius always bragged that nobody could resist that look since he perfected it during his sixth year, James never had much trouble with it. Either a result of over expenditure or because Sirius' performance was less inspired against a man.

For some ten minutes they talked about unimportant stuff. Mostly quidditch. James had to stop from laughing out loud when he realised that the formed quidditch captain and fanatic James Potter now considered the sport unimportant. A lot of priorities had changed after finding out that Lily was pregnant, especially when that damned prophecy came up as well.

Eventually the gong sounded again, and a few seconds later they were joined by the headmaster of Hogwarts. Today, he was wearing bright magenta robes with silver moons. Sometimes James could almost understand Lily's comments about pureblood fashion sense. Although Frank for example was much more conservatively clothed. But of course, compared to Dumbledore pretty much everybody looked boring. After some quick greetings they walked to the sitting room, where Lily and Alice had already found some comfortable dark brown leather chairs.

Soon they were all seated and provided with a butterbeer. Another 'new' thing. Two years ago Sirius would have asked for firewhiskey. And more likely than not James would have taken one as well. But tonight they needed clear heads anyway. Dumbledore immediately asked a few questions to both mothers about their sons. And of course they were only too happy to answer those questions. But eventually the old man nodded to Lily's last comment before his voice turned serious: "However pleasant this is, I can not help but think there is a more urgent reason for you to invite this particular group on such short notice tonight James? I guess it has to do with the message I sent earlier?"

James grimaced. That warning had been rather useless, arriving moments before the dark lord himself. "In a way. Although the warning arrived us only seconds before the actual attack."

Dumbledore looked surprised at the idea that Voldemort appeared so quick. But Frank asked: "Anyone who cares to fill us in? I have the feeling we are missing something."

"Earlier today Albus sent us a message that a death eater spy had informed him that Voldemort chose Harry." Lily explained. "Moments later, the wards were attacked by Voldemort."

"What? And you brought us over here?" Alice schreeched. "Are you out of your bloody mind?"

Everybody was clearly surprised by the outburst of the normally calm woman. But after a few seconds Lily calmly said: "Even Voldemort will need a bit of rest after spending so much magic in about half an hour."

Alice seemed to calm down a bit while Frank was softly speaking to her. Meanwhile Dumbledore, his voice as calm as ever, asked: "Could you describe the attack to us? Or maybe show us the memory?"

Immediately Timmy walked into the room carrying the Potter family pensieve. It was a very expensive type which had the extra functionality of projecting the memory onto a wall. Although the quality would drop down in that mode. Still, Lily put her memory inside the bowl and pressed the projecting button.

They saw the main gate in its eerie yellow glow and listened to Timmy explaining about the status of it. And soon after that they saw the lightshow of Voldemort's attacks on the outer ward. There were some whispered comments about how impressive the attack was. But when Timmy mentioned the wards would hold for five hours most of them relaxed. Frank actually started to mention how impressive those wards were when suddenly Voldemort's attack increased in size and intensity and he changed his comment into a curse. Next to him Sirius said: "Thirty minutes? That is impossible."

"It goes on like this for about ten minutes." Lily commented, before she turned the pensieve off. For a while nobody said anything. Then Frank asked: "Are you sure he was alone?"

James nodded: "Timmy only saw one wizard."

"Are you sure it was Voldemort?" Frank asked, before he continued: "Never mind, stupid question." It was, if any of Voldemort's lieutenants would be able to wield this much magic they would have all been killed by now.

"I think we can be sure of that Mr. Longbottom." Dumbledore said, his hands folded together just below his nose. His eyes were almost closed; obviously he was in deep thought. Eventually he said: "I believe this was just a test. He will most likely come back with a bodyguard next time. Although Voldemort will want to rest first, I guess even he will need a day or two to recover back to full strength after this."

"How sure is that guess?" Lily wanted to know.

Dumbledore hesitated: "I am afraid I have to admit that Voldemort reached into dark magic to improve his strength that I am not particularly familiar with Mrs. Potter. Still, from my last duel with him I think I have a decent estimate of his magical power. So I believe it is a reasonable guess."

"Would you be able to do the same?" Sirius wanted to know.

"Maybe if I went through those same rituals." Dumbledore pondered, "But it is a hypothesis, because I will never go that way. Right now, the dark lord is much stronger than me." There were shocked gasps all around and he quickly continued: "I would appreciate it if you keep that little fact inside this room. It would be bad for morale if people learned about it."

James could imagine that. The idea shocked him, he always thought Dumbledore was a close enough match for Voldemort. He almost missed the headmaster's question: "Is this the strongest ward of Lionfire Hall?"

He thought about it for a few seconds. It was against pureblood etiquette to ask those kind of questions, let alone answer them. But who cared about that anyway. "In raw power it is our strongest ward. Well, the wards on the main gate are stronger because they are more concentrated. And the defences inside the grounds are of course much more dangerous…"

"But if Voldemort manages to break through this ward, and I am afraid he will do so, those defences will not stop him either." Dumbledore said. James and Lily had of course already reached that conclusion. Apparently Dumbledore noted because he asked: "So, what is it you want to do now? In my own opinion the Fidelius charm would still offer you the best chance. My offer to be your secret keeper is still open."

James and Lily looked at each other for a few seconds. Then Lily nodded at him to signal that he could describe the plan they had formulated. Although plan was a big word for the few things they agreed on. He gathered his thoughts before he said: "We agree on the fidelius charm. But as you know we can not put one over Lionfire Hall without disabling the devices."

"You can stay with us if you want." Frank immediately offered, next to him Alice was nodding fervently. But Dumbledore immediately cautioned: "I do not think that is a very good idea."

James simply nodded. He could understand the reasoning. Neville might very well turn out to be the one the prophecy was about. And it would be unwise to have both him and Harry on the same location. "Thanks Frank. But we will move to one of the other Potter properties first. Timmy just has to prepare it. He said he and Jenny will do it tomorrow, but I would appreciate it if they could get some help from the Hogwarts elves? The house we are thinking of has been empty for over a century." All recently used Potter buildings had been rented out to allied families for low prices. It would be unfair to just chuck them out.

Dumbledore nodded: "Of course. I will ask them to help you. But if I may offer an alternative, my old house in Godric's Hollow is well cared for but unused. That way, you also have a group of magicals around you. A gossipy neighbour in particular." The last he added after a few seconds, clearly thinking about Bathilda Bagshot, the famous history author.

He looked back at Lily indicating that it would be her choice. She simply said: "Thanks Albus, we would love that."

"My pleasure." Dumbledore replied, "And I take it you still want me as the secret keeper?"

"No." James said, "We want Sirius for that."

Frank and Alice, and maybe even Dumbledore, were clearly surprised but Sirius simply choked out: "I won't let you down!"

"I know." James simply replied. Sirius would die before betraying them. And it was not like he did not trust Dumbledore, but the man was much more of a target than Sirius.

"Very well." Dumbledore said slowly and Lily asked: "You think this is a bad decision?"

Dumbledore carefully thought about his answer before he said: "I have no particular reason to distrust Mr. Black. But I know there is a leak in our organisation somewhere. Until we find that leak I am enticed to keep all important information to myself. No offence to Mr. Black of course."

"None taken." Sirius replied, although for James it was easy to recognise the hurt in his eyes. Sirius always was a bit touchy about subjects like this, mostly because he was after all the heir to one of the darkest pureblood families.

Apparently Frank had noticed as well and he tried to change the subject: "Can't we lay a trap for Voldemort? I mean, if we know he will be back here to attack the wards. Why not gather a lot of allies and attack him?"

Everybody looked to Dumbledore at this. But he slowly shook his head: "Voldemort will expect something like that, and so he will bring an army of his own. All we can bring against that is the Order of the Phoenix, which will be outnumbered. The only way I might convince minister Bagnold to bring the aurors is by telling her the prophecy."

"No, we do not want that." Lily replied for all the four parents inside the room. They had already decided soon after hearing the prophecy that they did not trust the ministry to do the right thing with that kind of information. Of course, the thing was recorded inside the ministry, but since only Voldemort and either Harry or Neville would be able to pick it up that did not really matter.

"Then I am afraid an ambush is not an option here." Dumbledore said. James had to agree although he did not really like it. Maybe Voldemort would sent in his army first though, the defences might not be able to kill Voldemort, but they would do a serious number on his followers. For a few seconds he let himself be distracted by the idea of the likes of Malfoy and Snape entering the grounds.

"So, why did you invite us for this discussion James?" Alice wanted to know, "Not that I do not appreciate it, but you could have worked this out without our help."

"True." James nodded. "But there is another thing." He turned to Dumbledore, "How much do you really know about divination sir?"

The old man shrugged: "I managed an outstanding OWL. But I do admit I never really broadened my view of the subject."

"I see." James replied, "And I thought it would be something like that. I think we should take the prophecy to a seer. For that, I would obviously need Frank and Alice to agree with me."

There was a long silence until Dumbledore asked: "Is this really necessary? I think the meaning of the prophecy is quite clear. And even if we wrongly interpreted it, the dark lord is still acting on it. Beside that, telling a seer involves another security risk. That is, if you can even find one… they are notoriously hard to find. With good reason of course."

Frank nodded and Alice said: "We thought about it as well, but we did not even know where to find one." Sirius quickly added he also did not know a seer. It was not too surprising, most seers did everything they could to hide themselves or at least their gift because otherwise they would be hounded by people that wanted to know the future. Still, he had a solution to that. "My uncle, Kevan Potter, visited a seer in Australia a few years before his death. Actually saved his life from some crazy big snake." Those were the actual words in the diary _'William was bitten by a crazy big snake today. Killed snake, healed poison'_. "From reading the diary I feel confident that the man will help us."

"Are you sure that he still lives?" Sirius asked.

"Well, beside that." James admitted. "But I figured it would be better to ask what Frank and Alice thought about this before I take a portkey to Sydney."

"We agree." Alice immediately replied, she looked positively giddy. And he remembered how she always had enjoyed divination at Hogwarts. "We always wanted more information about the prophecy."

"There is one condition though." Frank said, to Alice's obvious surprise. "I want to go with you. I want to hear those seers' words as well in case they are meant for Neville."

"Done." James nodded. Then they all looked to Dumbledore to see what he had to say. Somehow the old man actually looked surprised at this. "I can hardly stop you if you want to do this. I only advice the utmost caution. Are you sure this William is safe from the death eaters?"

"According to my uncle's diary no one else knows he is a seer. He only told Kevan after the episode with the snake." James replied.

"I see." Dumbledore nodded, "Well, if you do not need me anymore… I should go and pick up some of my belongings in Godric's Hollow and then hurry back to Hogwarts. Give me ten minutes and then it is all yours for as long as you need it." And after a few quick goodbyes he was gone again. The other five all looked at each other until Sirius asked: "Think he was mad at us?"

"No, I think he just is a busy man. Tomorrow there is an ICW session you know." Frank replied.

"Oh." Was all Sirius had to say to that. And so Frank continued: "In fact, I think the two of us should pick up Neville and head home too. It is getting rather late. When do you want to leave for Australia James?"

"Tomorrow. Why don't we meet at Gringotts at noon?" James said, he had to withdraw some money before buying a portkey. Next to him Lily said: "Noon our time is about midnight in Australia. You might want to wait a bit."

He looked at her, not even surprised anymore by her knowing those kind of things by heart. "Eight in the evening then?" Lily nodded.

Another short round of goodbyes and Lily showed Alice and Frank out by way of the nursery and the adjoining floo. With a few quick charms she could open its outbound channel for a few minutes. Meanwhile James and Sirius were sitting in silence, both thinking about the long meeting of tonight. Sirius had a rather mischievous look on his face. If James did not know better he would think Sirius was actually planning a rather elaborate prank. But this was no time for jokes, and he was sure his friend would agree to that.

_A/N: And another chapter done. Once again, a lot of talking. But it seems I always need that in my stories. Hope you guys do not mind too much._

_Four reviews to the first chapter. Very nice :D _


	3. The fidelius

**The fidelius**

Soon enough Lily rejoined them. She did not sit down but said: "I asked Timmy and Jenny to put some of our clothes together. Harry is still sleeping, I hope he will stay asleep while we portkey to our new place."

Rather unlikely. Harry seemed to dislike all kinds of magical transport. But that was not the most important part right now. "Let's get the house ready then." James replied. "Follow me."

He took the other two outside towards a small circular area covered in flagstones. It was surrounded by over twenty human sized statues of ancient warriors. He carefully positioned himself in the middle of the area and when he saw Lily's and Sirius' questioning looks he said: "This is the heart of the manor's defences. I think you two will enjoy this."

They still looked puzzled. But instead of explaining he just drew his wand, pointed it skywards, drew his magical reserves forward and shouted: "Piertotum locomotor!"

Immediately, the nearby statues started moving. Stone swords were withdrawn from stone scabbards. Helmets slowly moved around and limbs that had not moved for hundreds of years started to move, leaving small trails of dust falling behind them. One of the statues, a large knight covered in stone plate mail marched to a spot right in front of James. Its footsteps made an awful lot of noise on the flagstones. Eventually it stopped and turned its helmet towards James.

"Commander. In one hour we will leave Lionfire Hall. The house elves Timmy and Jenny will stay here, they are in overall command. It is your duty to prepare for an assault. If a wizard or witch from outside the Potter family enters the grounds you will attack." James told the creature that was the de facto commander of the Lionfire Hall statue army. It simply nodded its stone helmet in acceptance of its orders and James knew it would command the close to two hundred statues around to the best of its abilities.

James nodded in return: "Dismissed." As soon as the statue turned and started walking James also turned and saw two shocked expressions looking at him. He grinned and said: "Nice, isn't it? Now we have to go talk to my uncle Kevan."

Lily and Sirius followed him back to the manor. Sirius was the first to ask a question: "How did you do that? I mean, I know you are good in transfiguration… but…"

"Most of the power actually comes from the manor." James explained, "All kinds of ancient rune covered artefacts below ground that provide a lot of magical energy, I just had to activate it. Although I admit that transfiguration helps for that. Hogwarts actually has a similar defence."

"Did it activate all statues? Even the dragons?" Lily wanted to know next, obviously referring to the two thirty feet high Welsh green replicas that stood near the quidditch pitch at the other side of the house.

"Yes, all of them. Close to two hundred, although of course many of them inside the manor are only several inches big. The dragons do not really fly though, instead they jump. At least, that is what the defence book mentioned, I have never seen them in action." James replied calmly, it was hard to stay serious next to the gobsmacked expressions of his companions. But he managed. "Oh, and that is not all what the spell did. Look over there."

He pointed to his right where a large ballista had appeared. Three statues were already checking it, if there were any problems they would tell the commander who would summon Timmy or Jenny to repair it. But the thing was checked every year, just like the other six. And the nine catapults of course. So most likely they would all function just fine.

They had to stop when a stone tiger crossed their path. It was about as big as a real tiger, but easily ten times heavier. Still, it was walking rather gracefully. Sirius softly whistled: "Are you sure you want to leave Lionfire Hall?"

Lily actually looked doubtful as well by now, but James firmly nodded: "Yes. Judging by Voldie's show of power yesterday he will come in eventually. It will take him some time though. Time we can use to find that seer and work out our new information. As long as he believes that we are here that is…" Then he grimly added: "I do hope he will send in his army before moving inside himself. It will cost him an army."

Inside the manor they encountered lots of smaller statues that were checking the walls, more importantly they had moved some hidden wall panels away and were looking after the runes that were written behind them. James never really studied runes, but Lily was commenting about the complexity and number of them. Some of the statues actually carried small metal sticks and used them to redraw some runes that had been partly damaged or erased during the centuries. Of course, it would be better to get a real ward master or a curse breaker to do it, but this was far better than nothing. Still, if this all worked out for the best he should try to hire some professionals sometime.

Soon enough they found themselves in front of a large painting that depicted a middle-aged man standing in front of a cottage that was partly hidden by trees. Like all Potters the man had an unruly hairdo, although a bit darker than James' own hair.

"Uncle Kevan." James named the painting. Lily of course already knew this, but Sirius did not. After a quick introduction he asked: "Did you hear about the conversation we had with the Longbottoms and Dumbledore?"

The painting nodded, a worried look on his face. "Yes, some of the sitting room paintings informed me about it after they heard you mention my name. I assume you want to know about William?"

"Yes, do you know if he is still alive? And will he help us?" James asked.

With a shrug the painting replied: "I think he will help you, as long as you promise him you will not tell anybody else about him. He likes his solitude. As to being alive… I can't see why not, he was only around forty when I met him in 1965."

"I was wondering, did he ever prove that he was a seer to you?" Lily wanted to know. "I mean, we need to be sure that he is not a fraud."

"Well, he made a foretelling to me." Kevan simply replied, "Told me how I would die in a fire, but he did not know when or where. Only that it would be rather soon, since I still looked the same as I did at the time. Of course, since the memories for this painting were updated before my actual death it is hard for me to confirm it."

James blinked a few times. Kevan had actually died in a fire. Somehow a muggle orphanage in London had caught fire while Kevan was near. He had charged into the building to save some of the kids. According to the police and witnesses the building had resisted the fire somehow, of course there was no way for them to know that it was most likely because of Kevan's magic, but eventually it had succumbed to the flames and Kevan had not managed to get out in time. Eventually he asked: "You did die after running into a burning orphanage… Why on earth did you do that if you knew?"

"Ah, so William was right." Kevan said, half distracted, like he was happy to finally know for sure. Then he noticed the three questioning looks he got and continued: "There was something else to that foretelling. William said that if I would not get into that building six more children would die. It seemed a fair trade to me. I would not want to live on if I knew it was on that cost. You can not always change fate."

There was a short silence while they all thought about those words until Lily said: "So even if we learn more about the prophecy it might be useless?"

Kevan hesitated: "Possibly yes. But you have an advantage. You have a prophecy."

"But so did you." Lily protested.

"No, I got a foretelling. That is a huge difference." Kevan explained, "I actually studied it a bit after I returned from Australia, there are some nice books about it in the library. But the most important difference between a prophecy and a foretelling is that a prophecy gives a seer much more specific information. If William had been able to make a prophecy about my death he could have added a date and a place, and I would have gathered some friends to help me. That way, maybe I could have changed my fate. Or at least we could have saved some more children. But of course it is always a tricky business to play with fate. By the way, it would be best to have the seer that made the prophecy explain it, but I take it that is not an option?"

"No." James shortly replied. Dumbledore had explained to them that Trelawney had forgotten all about the prophecy. And he wanted to keep it that way. James and the others had agreed to that. Although Trelawney was quite safe from the dark lord now that Dumbledore had token her into Hogwarts she still was too close and too visible for comfort. William was a much safer bet. He decided to change the subject: "Kevan? I will ask Timmy and Jenny to lead the defence. Can you assist them and activate the inner wards if necessary?"

"Of course. I would be honoured." Kevan replied and James pushed his thumb on a small spot in the left corner of the frame which caused a dull yellow glow to appear over the painting for a few seconds, signalling that Kevan would be in charge of some parts of the defence of Lionfire Hall. He would have preferred to use a painting of his father, but that one was still under construction. Potter paintings took a lot of time to complete because of all the added options they got. But Kevan would do fine.

"Thank you Kevan. It is time for us to go get Harry and leave for our new home." James replied.

"Of course. Good luck, we will keep the manor safe." Kevan replied.

James hoped he was right, but after Voldemort's earlier attack he was not quite sure about it. However, there was nothing he could do about it now. On their way to the nursery Sirius asked: "So, what is Kevan going to add to the defences?"

"A few small things, mainly he will activate the garden pods. All around the grounds there are small hidden instruments that will shoot minor hexes to every living thing that moves around. Stunners, trip jinxes, things like that. Nothing lethal, but it will help the statues." James explained. That line of defence should only be activated during an actual breach of the outer wall. The small instruments only lasted a few hours, then they needed days to recharge.

Sirius laughed: "Your ancestors were even more paranoid than my own it seems. I mean, Grimmauld Place is very safe as well, but only because it is well hidden. If someone manages to find it they can easily walk in. Lionfire Hall seems to be a death trap."

James only nodded. The main problem was that the Potters had always insisted to be on the front in the battle against evil. And so they needed a very well protected place for their children, after all, dark wizards would love to hurt their enemies by targeting their helpless kids. Of course, they could have chosen for a hideout like the Black manor, but it was not really in their character, and thus they had created a real magical fortress. He tried to remember if he had forgotten any of the defences, but he was confident that between Timmy, Jenny, Kevan and the statues all of them would be activated.

Soon enough they entered the nursery. Timmy was just stacking a few miniaturized suitcases into a neat pile while Jenny was standing guard next to Harry's bed. They could not help but look at Harry first, but he was still soundly asleep. Only his head peeked out above the blankets. Lily pulled her wand and whispered the muffliato charm. She was a master with this spell and would most likely create a sound barrier between Harry and the rest of the room so the kid could sleep on. She still did not want to tell him where she picked up that useful little spell. Combined with her mastery of it James had reached the conclusion that she had invented it for herself. But she had denied that claim as well, maybe false modesty.

Jenny had apparently decided not to leave Harry's side since the attack. Or maybe she just wanted to spend as much time with him as possible now that the Potters were leaving Lionfire Hall for a while. She loved the kid almost as much as his parents did. Whatever the reason, any attacker that reached the nursery would be wise to reconsider upon encountering the fierce look in the eyes of the small elf. She almost made the simple Potter house elf uniform look dangerous.

It was Timmy who spoke first: "I gathered some clothes and toilet items for all of you. And of course I picked up the books you were using Lily."

"Thank you Timmy, you are the best." Lily smiled.

The elf bowed and squeaked: "Are you sure we can not come with you?"

"Yes, we need you two to lead the defence." James replied, and when he saw the downcast look on the two faces he continued: "It is most likely only for a few days. And you would be bored in such a small house anyway… Oh, and of course you two will have to flee from here if the manor falls, no use in fighting to the death."

"But are we allowed to hurt the bad wizards?" Jenny asked in a voice that was even higher than Timmy's, although she spoke with such clear viciousness that there was nothing funny about it.

James grinned anyway, but more because of the idea of Jenny charging Malfoy with one of her kitchen knives. "Of course you are. Just do not risk your own lives, we will need you. And Harry will need you." That was almost unfair, but if it helped to keep the elves alive he did not really care. Both of them nodded to show that they understood his instructions. So next he asked: "Did the statue commander already speak with you Timmy?"

"Yes, but all he said was that everything looked to be in order so far." Timmy replied, "I did not really have time to talk with him, since I had to pack your suitcases."

James nodded: "That is okay then. Well, I guess we have to go then. As you know the floo in the sitting room will be the only one still open for communication. Sirius here will contact you later tonight to inform you about our new address."

"But we already know that." Jenny protested.

"You will forget it when we perform the fidelius charm." Lily replied while carefully picking up Harry. The toddler was apparently not fully asleep, because his arms immediately circled around Lily's neck. "And you will need it of course. I mean, we will want to talk with the two of you quite often."

Both elves beamed at that. And just like that Lily managed to make the moment of goodbye seem almost cheerful. James had been afraid that the elves would cause a bit of drama. Now he just put the pile of miniaturized coffers in his pocket and turned Harry's favourite chew toy, a black dog that to Sirius' great annoyance they had called Snuffles, into a portkey. Seconds later the familiar tug of portkey travel brought them to Godric's Hallow.

Before they could even look at the house they were all gathered around Harry trying to make him stop crying. As usual he had not agreed with magical transport. James sometimes wondered if the kid would ever get used to it. For now it seemed to be one of the only things that could disturb him. But soon enough Lily managed to calm him down and they turned towards the headmaster's home.

The cottage was hidden behind a hedge, but as soon as they stood in front of the iron gate they could see a small but homely looking place. It was difficult to see any details in the dark of the early night, but it seemed nice enough for the three of them. They walked inside and found a cosy living room filled with a haphazard collection of stuffed sofas. It resembled the Gryffindor common room in a way.

The ground floor was almost totally filled by the living room, although there was a small kitchen behind a door to the side. The wooden stairway to the upper level stood at the other side of the living room. All together it made a very homely impression. The fire merrily burning inside the hearth partly explained that as well. Apparently Dumbledore had made an effort to make them feel at home. Even more surprising was the large cot standing at the side of the room. Judging by the amount of frilly decorations it could very well have been Dumbledore's own old cot. It certainly looked old enough.

Nonetheless Lily moved over to it and put Harry inside. The kid was still sleepy, and it would give them free hands for the fidelius charm. Meanwhile Sirius said: "I have been thinking, isn't it a bit too obvious to pick me as your secret keeper?"

James raised an eyebrow: "Well, Dumbledore seemed to think we should have picked him. Why, you want out?" He hoped he managed to ask that in a neutral way.

"No! Not at all!" Sirius protested, raising his hands in defence. Obviously, he had not managed to ask it in a neutral way… "But I was thinking, wouldn't it be better to pick somebody else, but still tell everybody that I am the secret keeper? That way, all attention will go to me while your real secret keeper will be safe. And if they somehow manage to catch me I can not even begin to tell them what they want to know."

James thought about it. It sounded like a good idea, another layer of defence around them… He turned to Lily and saw that she was also thinking it over. Eventually she was the one to ask: "I take it you want Remus to be our secret keeper?"

That was what James thought as well, so he was surprised when Sirius said: "No, he sometimes talks in his sleep. It is too much of a risk. Instead I figured we should ask Peter, no one would see that one coming." James had to fight back a grin when he remembered how they had teased Remus during their fifth year when he had mumbled the name of a Hufflepuff girl a few times in his sleep. Then he focused on the more important part and he slowly said: "I have absolute faith in Peter, but he is not really the type for a secret keeper I think…" The man was likable enough, but he was a poor fighter at best. His role in the order was much more administrative.

"Exactly." Sirius agreed. "That is the best part of it. You once mentioned to me you did not want Dumbledore as a secret keeper because he is on the frontlines all the time and if he dies the secret would be shared. Peter almost never fights, so the risk of him going down is very small. And I would keep an eye on him of course, but I think it is hardly necessary. After all, who would expect him to be your secret keeper? We just have to give him polyjuice before he uses the floo to tell everybody about your new address."

"I have to admit I like the idea." James replied. There were some minor difficulties, like Peter's poor acting ability. He had always been disastrous at making up alibi's during their Hogwarts time. But on the other hand he never accidentally gave away a plan for a prank. In fact, if he had the time to think things out he was easily the sneakiest marauder. So he was trustworthy. He turned to Lily: "What do you think?"

Lily thought it over for a while before she replied: "I can not see Peter betraying us. So why not? Just keep an eye on him Sirius, I do not want him to get hurt." She had always been a bit protective about the fourth marauder.

Some five minutes later Sirius and Peter apparated into the living room. Peter was a lot smaller than Sirius, and although it was unkind to think so out of the three of them Peter resembled his animagus form the most. Sadly, his form was a rat. The small man had a squeaky voice and a bit of a pointed nose. But he had always been a loyal and good friend, so who cared about his appearance.

Peter's head turned around in sharp sudden movements while he took in their new living room before he said: "Hey James, Lily. I never expected Dumbledore to have a house like this. Sirius said you wanted to talk to me?"

James figured he might as well tell it straight: "We wanted to ask you to be our secret keeper."

"Secret keeper… me? But why? I mean… why not him?" The small man squeaked while pointing at Sirius, who just grinned. James wondered for a few moments how much he would tell Peter. Recently they had not seen much of him because his mother was rather ill. And thus he had not learned half as much about the prophecy as Sirius and Remus did. Was this the time to inform him?

In the end he decided not to, it was much easier to wait a few days until after they had talked to William. So he just said: "We asked Sirius first. But he suggested we ask you instead." There was now a look of pure panic on Peter's face and Lily quickly added: "We will tell everybody that Sirius is the secret keeper, so that all attention will be focused on him. But by making you our secret keeper he will not be able to tell them anything. Although of course we hope he will still be safe, no crazy heroic acts." She added rather sternly to Sirius, who suddenly looked very innocent.

A huge relief was visible on Peter's face. James wanted to be angry at the idea that Peter would not want to risk himself for them, but he could hardly blame him. It was a simple fact that Peter was not much of a fighter. He squeaked again: "I can see how that would work yes… And I am honoured that you would trust me with this."

James nodded and Lily smiled at the small man. Sirius just said: "You will have to drink some polyjuice and then use the floo to inform everybody. Keep it short, that should fool them. Although I am worried about Remus."

James had to agree with that, Remus had the uncanny ability to smell the person beneath the polyjuice potion. But Peter had a good suggestion: "We should just add some smelly stuff to the fire before I contact him. That should cover me."

He had to grin. Thinking of ideas like that had been Peter's main contribution to the history of the marauders. He seemed to be getting better in it as well, at Hogwarts he usually needed to think things through for a while.

There was nothing more to say. So Lily, who was the only one that could even understand the immensely complex charm, let alone perform it, started to prepare. Meanwhile the three marauders tried not to bother her. Sirius did this by moving towards Harry's cot and gazing toward his godson. Meanwhile James softly asked Peter some questions about the health of his mother. Once again he offered to pay for St. Mungo's if that was the problem. After all, Peter's family was a lot poorer than his own, especially now that Peter had been forced to give up his job because of his mother's health. But the small man kept ensuring him that everything would work out fine. In the end he actually started to be nervous about James' questions. Eventually James gave up and changed the subject to quidditch. Surprisingly enough Peter still expected the Cannons to win the league sometime soon.

Lily chose that moment to announce that she was ready. She asked Peter to move forward and after a few shuffling steps she pointed her wand at him. This obviously made the small man nervous again, but where Lily normally would have said something kind to him this time she just muttered some long Latin sentences. After about five minutes she finished and turned to Sirius: "Sirius, where are we right now?"

Sirius laughed: "That's easy, this is… Wait… I know it… we went from Lionfire Hall to a new place… this is…"

James grinned: "Well, that worked fine. Brilliant work again Lily." She smiled proudly at him and replied: "Thanks James. Peter? Maybe you can help Sirius?"

Peter looked surprised before he finally realised the problem: "Oh, of course… Sirius? James, Lily and Harry now live in Dumbledore's home in Godric's Hollow."

Sirius blinked a few times before he slowly said: "Now I remember… That was weird."

"Maybe we should have asked you to step outside before performing the charm." Lily admitted, "But it worked, so no harm done."

"Right." Sirius nodded before he pulled a flask out of his robes. With a grimace he pulled a long hair out of his head and put it inside the flask. The liquid inside of it started to change into a dark red. Sirius held it in the light and commented: "Pure red wine. Good brand, good year. Cheers Peter."

"Thanks." The small man smiled while accepting the flask from Sirius. He took a deep breath and then turned the full bottle away in one swallow. For a second they saw him grimace at the foul taste of polyjuice. But then his body started to change. It became much taller and stronger and of course his appearance changed from the ratty face of Peter to the much more handsome face of Sirius. His clothes were of course way too small for his new body and Lily hastily transfigured them. The real Sirius, who was critically looking at his new doppelganger said: "Tsk, Lily. I expected you would take some time to look at those abs. I am disappointed."

"Not with my husband in the same room." Lily easily replied, and for the first time that night James had to laugh. Somehow the idea that his best friend could still do his silly flirting ritual with his wife made him feel everything would turn out fine. As soon as he regained control he said: "You better start calling people Peter, you only have an hour after all."

It was strange to see Peter's doubting expression on Sirius' face. His friend would normally just charge into things and worry about it later. Peter was the exact opposite and he made that clear by asking: "What should I tell them?"

"Oh, come on!" Sirius exclaimed, "Just something like: 'Hey, the Potters went into hiding. I have to tell you they now live in Dumbledore's house in Godric's Hollow. Sorry, can't stay, need to inform more people'."

Not really tactful, but it got Peter to the floo. Lily stood next to him, just outside the line of sight with a list of people whom he should call.

James and Sirius watched it for a while. Eventually they moved to the back of the room and James softly asked Sirius: "Can you come over here tomorrow? Keep an eye on Lily while I am in Australia?"

"Of course." Sirius immediately replied, "I will keep her safe."

"Are you free tomorrow then?" He asked, after all… he did not want Sirius to get in trouble with his work as an auror. But Sirius simply laughed: "No, but I was planning to resign soon anyway. I'll guess Crouch won't like it that I leave without notice. But what can he do about it."

James turned to him in surprise: "Are you sure?"

"Yes, it would be stupid to remain active as an auror now that I am supposed to be your secret keeper. It would endanger my colleagues. Beside that, since you two left and Crouch took over it has been going downhill anyway. I know the man is building a reputation as a death eater hunter, but to me his methods are a bit too ruthless."

James nodded in understanding. Crouch was about as different from their former leader as they got. He was all about using deathly force and had a sort of a kill-then-ask idea about finding death eaters. Many people seemed to think that he was just the man the auror department needed right now. And of course the number of captured death eaters had gone up. Well, captured was the wrong word since most of them were cold bodies when they reached the ministry, but still. However Dumbledore had vehemently objected to some of his more extreme methods. And most of the order members including James, Lily and Sirius agreed with him. Still, at the very least it would be good to have Sirius around full time. So Crouch was not completely useless…

_A/N: I hope you guys aren't too disappointed about not seeing our seer yet. But I felt I needed to describe the defences of Lionfire Hall a bit. It is almost tempting to randomly throw a few death eaters inside the grounds for target practise now that all defences are active, but I can't really find a way to put that into the story:/ Also, the actual fidelius needed some screen time… So William had to wait a bit. Next chapter we will see him though._

_Four reviews again. Very nice:)_


	4. The seer

**The Seer**

"Hey James." A voice sounded from right behind him. He turned around and saw that Frank had just left Gringotts. Apparently he had decided that he might as well attend some business while he was around here anyway. Just like James had withdrawn some money earlier.

"Hi Frank, right on time." He replied.

Frank simply nodded: "Off course. How is your new home by the way? Sirius told us about it yesterday."

Ah, so at least the Longbottoms had not been able to see through Peter's acting. Of course, after both Remus and Dumbledore had fallen for it he pretty much expected everybody else to follow. But still it was good to hear. Suddenly he realised that he still had not answered: "Oh, it is nice I guess. A lot smaller than Lionfire Hall obviously. But Lily found a small library with all kind of rare books, so she is happy."

Frank grinned: "And you had to look after yourself?"

He shrugged: "That was not too hard. I played with Harry, and a few hours ago Sirius joined us for an early dinner. He is staying with Lily now."

Again Frank nodded his head: "Yeah, I also invited some friends over for tonight. How long do you think we'll be gone?"

"I hope that we will be back before midnight. But if William proves hard tFo find it might take a lot longer. I have a floo address, but it is almost twenty years old…" James replied, and then he shrugged and pulled a small piece of wood out of his robe. He offered it to Frank and the other man immediately put some fingers on it. Then James said: "Potter, Longbottom, Sydney."

The sudden jerk forward was just the same as with an average portkey. But since they were heading to the other side of the earth this time it seemed the forward movement was way faster. Beside that, it also took longer. But soon enough they found themselves in a large square stone room without any windows. There were two large doors at one side and lots of mirrors on another wall. Beside that, there were a few desks. Only one of them was manned and they walked that way.

They were greeted by a young blonde woman. James had to wonder if her tan was natural from the Australian sun or if it was artificial. Lily had once mentioned some muggles did that as well. Anyway, he did not really like the results on this girl; there was such a thing as too much tan. Especially if you were blonde. However, the girl was friendly enough when she said: "Good day, gentlemen. Mr. Potter and Mr. Longbottom from the United Kingdom I guess?" After they had both agreed she said: "Could I have your wands for identification please?"

James was the first to hand over his wand. She carefully put it on some strange device that James did not recognize and wrote a few lines down. Next she picked up her own wand and shot a silent spell at James' wand. "This is a tracking spell." She explained, "It will not be used or monitored, unless there is some legal reason for the Australian ministry to find you. When you return to the United Kingdom my colleague over there will remove it again."

James accepted his wand back and waited while the girl did the same with Frank's wand. After that she said: "I wish you a pleasant time in Australia. Oh, are you familiar with our mirror system?"

"Mirror system?" Frank and James asked at the same time.

She smiled: "I take that as a no then. Since our climate is much warmer than that of most European countries most of our homes do not have fireplaces. So we could not use the floo system. Instead we use mirrors." She pointed to the row of mirrors on the far wall. "It works almost the same as your floo system. But instead of starting a fire you just push on one of the buttons and then call the name of your destination. The green button allows you to see and hear the other side, the red button allows you to walk through the mirror."

"Sounds simple enough." James agreed, "Thank you."

"You are welcome." The girl smiled her big smile again. James started to wonder how much her cheeks would hurt after a busy day. Of course, if today was anything to go by she was simply happy that something happened. There were still no other people inside the room.

They walked to the row of mirrors and found a large rectangular one. With a shrug James pushed the green button and said: "Nadgee Heights." Immediately their reflection disappeared and was replaced by a kind of grey fog. After a few seconds James and Frank looked at each other and James asked: "Think it is broken?"

Frank shrugged: "No idea, maybe they need some time? Let's just wait for a while."

And sure enough, after a minute or so the grey fog suddenly disappeared and they got their first glimpse of Nadgee Heights. It looked like the sparsely decorated room had wooden walls. A strange sight, when you were used to the stone buildings of Britain. He focused on the man that was looking at them. A small dark skinned man with short black and grey hair and dark eyes. It seemed to match the description from Kevan's diary. But he could not be sure without asking: "Good afternoon sir. Are you William?"

The man nodded and said: "I take it you are a Potter? Your hairdo makes me think of Kevan."

Frank laughed at that. But James simply replied: "Yes, I am James Potter. Kevan was my uncle. And this is Frank Longbottom. We have a few questions for you, but I think it would be better if we could discuss this in person, do you mind if we come over?"

The man took some time to think about that. And James had to repress the urge to fidget nervously, if the man refused them he would have no idea where to find another seer. But eventually the man grimaced: "Alright then. Just make sure no one overhears the location after pushing the red button."

Immediately the mirror turned back to their own reflection again. Frank pushed the red button while James looked around. It turned out that the blond girl behind the desk was still the only other one in the room, and so James felt free to repeat the address again. This time the mirror showed only the room, there was no sign of William anymore. They exchanged a doubtful glance before James carefully pushed his foot against the mirror. Immediately he was drawn in and flung through some odd space that was lined with all kind of windows. Soon he was thrown straight through an oval window and landed face first on the wooden floor of Nadgee heights.

"Ouch." He grunted while crawling up. A second later he was smashed down into the floor again when Frank flew into the room and landed full on his back.

"Ouch." He repeated.

A dry chuckle sounded from their left: "Not used to mirror travel?"

"Not really." Was Frank's dry reply while he removed himself from James. After that he offered James a hand and pulled him to his feet again. Now James finally got the chance to look around. It turned out the room was indeed totally built of wood. It actually gave the room a rather nice aroma, although James felt he would appreciate it more if his nose had not been rubbed into the wood twice in a row. Outside the windows he saw a large pine forest. There were close to no decorations in the room. Only a single painting of a dark skinned woman. Most likely a relative of William. But to his surprise there was a strange muggle device in the corner. Lily had once pointed out a thing like that to James, although it was not exactly the same. He tried to remember how she had called it… A tele-something… Five comfortable leather chairs formed a half circle around it. And their host pointed into that direction: "Let's take a seat."

As soon as they all were seated he asked: "So, I believe I do not need my powers to learn that Kevan told you about my talents."

James nodded: "Well… in fact his diary and painting did."

"Oh, he died? I am sorry to hear that." William replied, before he suddenly seemed to remember something. "In a fire?" James nodded and the man suddenly drew his wand, although he did not yet point it towards any of them: "You should understand that it was not my fault. I could only warn him about it. But I am in no way responsible for what happened."

"I do understand that. But that is not the reason why we came here." James tried to reassure William. Of course he knew that one of the main reasons that most seers chose to hide themselves and their talents was that people would blame them if their foretellings actually came to pass.

"Don't you actually know why we are here?" Frank wondered. And the second reason was that most people did not understand their gift. Not that James was an expert, but he had at least read through Kevan's observations.

William put his wand away again before he released a large sigh. If it was because he was relieved that they did not come for revenge or because he was tired of yet another stupid question about his gift was hard to tell. But eventually he answered Frank: "No. It is not like I know what will happen around me all the time. I need to focus on a person for a while to do a foretelling, and even then most of the time I can not add dates or locations to the event. In fact, I would think that after your uncle died despite my foretelling you would not really be interested in more foretellings James."

"We are not really interested in foretellings." James agreed, "But Kevan said a prophecy was a very different thing?"

William looked pleasantly surprised: "Well, at least you know a little bit about seers. And yes, a prophecy would be much more specific. But I can not make those on command. Of course, if you want to stay here a few years I will probably make one. My last one was a rather extensive prediction of the fashion show in Milan of 2007. No clue how that one got into my head… But maybe the next one will be more interesting."

James got distracted a bit by the strange subject. He was not even sure what a fashion show was, but it seemed a bit of a useless subject for a prophecy. Meanwhile Frank explained: "No, it is not like that. We already know the prophecy. We just want a seer to look over it."

This seemed to surprise William. But eventually he said: "You want me to look over the prophecy of another seer? It is possible of course, but the original seer would reach even better results. I take it he or she can not be reached?"

James doubted if Trelawney would even know where to start if they asked her. From what he'd seen of her she seemed to be a bit of a fraud that accidentally had performed a real prophecy somehow. But it was easier to just reply with: "No, she is unavailable."

"I see…" William nodded, then he relaxed back in his chair for a long while. Eventually he looked up again and said: "I have two conditions. First, how many people know I live here?"

"Only the two of us. But my wife, and in a few years my son, will be able to read Kevan's diary and find this place as well. It is protected so people outside the family can not read it." James replied.

"Right… I want both of you to swear an oath that you will not tell anyone else where they can find me. And I want you to ask your wife, and eventually your son, the same." William explained his first condition. James simply pulled his wand forward and said: "On my magic, I, James Potter, swear not to tell anyone where they can find William." After a few seconds he added: "Nor will I tell anyone his last name. I will also instruct my wife and son to do the same."

Next to him Frank echoed James' first sentence. He did not add the part about the last name, most likely because he did not even know it anyway.

William nodded: "Thanks, it may seem over the top to you. But you have no idea how much people would haunt me if the knowledge about me being a seer would be spread too far."

"I think I can imagine." Frank replied, "And thanks for your trust."

The man shrugged uncomfortably: "I hardly see you turning yourself into a squib just to tell somebody else about me. Anyway, my second condition is that if you decide to change the course of fate you will not return to me again. It is not that I am against meddling with fate, but if I try to _see _again after prophesized events were altered I just get a splitting headache. And I rather avoid that."

James looked at Frank, who nodded back to him, before he said: "That seems reasonable enough. After you study our prophecy, I would like to discuss your findings a bit though."

William waved impatiently: "That is fine. But only before you actually alter fate. After that, I want nothing to do with it. If that is okay with you just tell me the prophecy and give me a few minutes."

James nodded before he withdrew a paper from his pocket. He was sure he knew the prophecy by heart, but this was not a time for mistakes. And so he read aloud:

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

William blinked a few times in surprise before he said: "I did not see that one coming. A very strong and dark prophecy… It will cost me a while." Frank wanted to say something, but William raised his hand and said: "Do not tell me anything about the words, it is better if I know nothing."

They both nodded to show they understood and watched how William pulled his legs beneath himself so he reached a lotus position in his chair. Next his eyes turned to a clear silver glow. Iris, pupil and all simply disappeared in the silver sea. Then he started to softly hum.

James and Frank simply waited, afraid to disturb the man by moving or talking. It took almost half an hour until William finally relaxed and returned his eyes to a more common brown. His expression immediately turned rather grave though.

_A/N: I am sure you all agree that this was the best spot to end this chapter? I mean, what would be the fun of reading Williams views right now?_

_My choice to stop right here was actually story motivated though, not just to be an irritating writer;)_


	5. Studying the prophecy

**Studying the prophecy**

Once they got back in Britain James had immediately summoned Timmy and asked him to bring the Potter pensieve to Godric's Hollow. Next he had sent a very urgent floo call to Dumbledore before both Frank and he had left to inform their wives.

Now, only some five minutes after the grumpy customs officer had removed their tracking charms the six people who had been gathered in Lionfire Hall the day before were together again. But this time they filled the haphazard collection of stuffed sofas in Dumbledore's home. Once again, Jenny was upstairs babysitting Harry and Neville. She had been crying with joy after Timmy sent her over. Apparently she had thought she would not see Harry for a while.

James had just plundered Dumbledore's wine cabinet because he had the feeling they could use a bit of help today. After he handed everybody a glass of firewhiskey Lily impatiently asked: "Can we get going now? We want to know what got you so worked up. All you told us is that Harry is the one the prophecy is about."

"Yes… Of course." James nodded, while trying to gather his still confused thoughts. Eventually he managed to give a bit of an introduction: "I just added my memory of William's explanation to the pensieve. You have to understand that there are essentially two parts. First, William talks about how Harry's life would be if we do not do anything. I will warn you, it is not nice. But I think it would be best if we move through that without too much comment. Because after that, he analyzes the prophecy. And that is the part that we really need to understand if we want to alter the future."

Everybody nodded in understanding. Although most of them seemed even more worried after his long-winded explanation. With a sigh he turned on the pensieve. Ready to hit the pause button.

Immediately an image of William appeared on the wall in front of him. They could all hear the man say: _"On the evening of all hallow's the dark lord will arrive at the hiding place of Harry's family. Earlier that day, their secret keeper will have told him their location."_

James pushed the pause button. Beside him Sirius jumped up and shouted: "What? He is going to betray you? I KILL HIM FIRST!"

"Sirius! Calm down!" James shouted, "You're not going anywhere until we are finished here. And then I will kill him. If we decide that is our best option that is.

"Of course it is!" Sirius said. Still loud, but a bit less urgent now. Reluctantly he downed half his glass while trying to calm down.

"I have the feeling we have been misinformed about the secret keeper yesterday?" Dumbledore cheerfully asked.

"YES!" Apparently, Sirius still was upset. "I thought I was too obvious…" whatever else he was going to add drowned in some angry grumbling noises. And Lily clarified: "Sirius suggested we would ask Peter instead, since no one would go hunting for him. Apparently, that is not even necessary." She paused for a few seconds: "I can not believe Peter would do that!"

"Me neither." James admitted, "But as I said, we should move on a bit. This is going to take days otherwise."

Everybody calmed down a bit. Although Sirius still looked ready to kill and Alice was still looking a bit surprised about the change in secret keepers and the results of it. He pushed the button again.

William continued: _"First the dark lord will kill you in a fight James." _James ignored the shocked outcries. He could not have pushed the pause button anyway since Lily had just jumped at him and had her arms and legs wrapped around him while crying into his shoulder. William was of course not aware of all this and simply continued: _"Next, he will go upstairs to the nursery. He will offer Lily a choice, if she steps aside he will just kill Harry and let her live." _"No! No! No!" Lily half mumbled, half shouted. _"She refuses, and so he kills her as well. Next he wants to kill Harry, but the spell rebounds, leaving only a scar and destroying the dark lord's body." _Reluctantly he pushed the button again. This way they would still be talking at Halloween.

However, the anger and sadness had already been partly swept away by Williams last sentence. Alice was the first to ask: "How can Harry not only survive Voldemort's curse but also rebound it?"

All heads turned to Dumbledore, who was looking very thoughtful. Eventually he said: "It is only a theory of course. But the only thing I can think of is that Lily's sacrifice creates some kind of protection for young Harry."

There was a short silence until Lily whispered: "Then maybe we should not do anything. Our two lives against Voldemort's would be a decent trade. Especially if we save Harry that way."

Unsurprisingly everybody started to object to this. But James gathered Lily close and whispered: "I thought the same." The things uncle Kevan had said about his own death had suddenly jumped through his brain. He was sure it was the same for Lily. "But wait until you have seen it all. Maybe you will change your mind, I know I did."

Lily shot him a hopeful look. And it seemed the others had heard him, for they calmed down enough for him to restart the pensieve.

"_In the aftermath of the attack everybody will believe that another friend of you was your secret keeper. And this man will be put into Azkaban." _William said.

"Figures." Muttered Sirius, but apparently the others also wanted to speed things up. And so William continued: _"Dumbledore will bring your son to some muggle relatives of you…"_

"No! Not to Petunia! Why would you do that? She hates magic!" Lily shrieked, and James stopped the pensieve again.

"She does?" Dumbledore appeared genuinely surprised. "I still remember the letter she sent me because she wanted to join you at Hogwarts. I would never have guessed."

Lily looked surprised at that, but Dumbledore continued: "And as to your question. I am not sure myself. Normally Harry would be sent to one of his godparents if something happened to you. Obviously, in this future Sirius would not be an option. But I can not see why I would not bring Harry to his godmother."

"Me neither." Alice replied, "And you better watch out for yourself if you do something like this!"

Dumbledore raised his hands defensively, although his grandfatherly smile was merely reassuring. "There might be some advantages of sending Harry to a blood relative of Lily after a sacrifice like that. But I would never do that without consulting you."

"And I would never allow you to send Harry to Petunia." Alice firmly replied. Next to James he could feel the agreement beaming away from Lily.

"In that case I am afraid I have no idea how Harry ends up with your sister Lily. But maybe we should listen to what else William has to say. It might enlighten us." Dumbledore calmly said.

James tried to remember if there would be any more information about this particular subject. He did not think so. Maybe he should have asked, but there was so much else to worry about. He pushed the button again and William continued: _"… They will reluctantly take him. But his youth will be lonely and without love or affection. His schoolwork will actually suffer from it, as will his social skills."_

"I am starting to see what you mean." Lily whispered to James. He just nodded; it was not worth dying if it would mean their son would become unhappy.

William continued: _"Just after his eleventh birthday a lot of this changes for the better though. He will go to Hogwarts. And soon he will have two good friends. One of them, a muggleborn girl called Hermione Granger, will be his firmest ally. She will never let him down. She also, comes from an equally friendless youth, although her parents do love her. So her home life is much better than Harry's. But her peers will not be so friendly."_

"Maybe we could contact her." Lily suggested. James just smiled at her and when nobody else said anything he let the pensieve move on.

"_During their first year. Voldemort will somehow possess one of the teachers…"_

"Wait! What? Didn't he just die?" Sirius asked, "Or I mean, will he not die? Eh… Never mind, you know what I mean."

James grinned. He still felt the same confusion when talking about future events. "No, wait a second, I asked the same."

"_But… you just said he died?" Pensieve-James asked._

"_No. I said his body was destroyed. The dark lord somehow created anchors for his soul. He can not truly die until those anchors are gone, but we will return to that subject later on." William replied, and when Pensieve-James reluctantly nodded he continued: "the possessed teacher will try to get the philosopher's stone which is hidden in Hogwarts during this year. But Harry and his friends will stop him just in time."_

"Wait a minute." Dumbledore protested, "The philosophers stone in Hogwarts? Why would I ever allow that? It is very well protected by its owner anyway."

"It exists then? I thought it was a myth?" Lily asked.

"This is all not important." James cut them short, "And even if it is you will have about ten years to find it all out."

They both reluctantly nodded while William moved on to Harry's second year: _"During his second year one of the dark lord's soul anchors will be smuggled into Hogwarts. Somehow it will be able to send a monster through its halls. At the end of the year Hermione is petrified by the monster. A short time later Harry and his other friend hunt down the monster. Although they got separated on their way down and Harry faces the monster and the part of Voldemort's soul on his own. He manages to win and destroy the anchor though."_

James decided for another break and Sirius whistled softly: "Your son is cool. I think future-me should escape from Azkaban just to see him doing cool things."

He could not resist throwing his friend a strange look at that. But before Sirius could ask anything Dumbledore said: "This is troubling. I can not allow a young student to face such deathly situations two years in a row. But maybe it is the prophecy at work? He seems to ruin Voldemort's plans twice."

"We asked William about that at the end. He said it was difficult to answer that question. According to him Harry will be an exceptional wizard and Voldemort will try and seek him out. They are bound to clash a few times, prophecy or not." James replied.

"Yes, divination is hardly ever more precise than that." Dumbledore commented thoughtfully.

"Right. Now for third year." James said when nobody replied to the headmaster.

"_In his third year your falsely accused friend will escape," _"Hah! Told you so!" Sirius commented. William continued: _"after he learns that the real secret keeper is hiding in Hogwarts. The ministry somehow thinks he is trying to kill Harry and organises a huge manhunt."_

"Stupid ministry of morons. Glad I resigned." Sirius muttered. But not loud enough to disturb the pensieve. _"At the end of the year Harry and his friends will meet with the secret keeper. Another of your friends, who happens to teach defence during that year,"_

"Must be Remus. He would be a great teacher." Lily commented.

"_Helps the secret keeper to explain the real situation to Harry. They try to bring the betrayer to justice, but he manages to escape when the professor changes into a werewolf."_

"Remus is a werewolf?" Alice shrieked.

"Yes, is that a problem?" James asked rather coolly, while Sirius looked very angry all of a sudden. It was pure luck that Alice managed to calm them down with her reply: "No, of course not. He is a nice enough guy. I just was surprised." She turned to Frank: "Did you know?"

"Not really. Or at least, not until I heard this in Australia. But I had my suspicions." Frank replied. James decided not to wait for an explanation, so he just unpaused again.

"_The ministry will not believe their story." _More angry muttering from Sirius, _"But Harry and Hermione somehow manage to save him from the dementor's kiss. I am not sure how they do it, somehow my vision is not able to follow them. Like it does not really know where to look for them. I never experienced anything like it before. But at least they both are in good health when they go back home."_

"_Then in his fourth year Harry will somehow end up in the triwizard tournament. And for the first time his other friend betrays him. Hermione will of course stand by him. He somehow manages to win the tournament, but the cup portkeys him and another champion outside of Hogwarts into the clutches of the dark lord and the betrayer. They kill the other champion, then they use Harry's blood along with some other things to restore Voldemort to a body."_

And… Pause. There was a long silence until Sirius asked: "How is that even possible? Restoring a body?"

"Some kind of dark ritual I guess. I am not that well-versed into that kind of spells." Dumbledore replied.

"Does it matter? I want to know if he manages to survive this somehow." Alice objected.

Lily only sniffed: "He just saw a fellow student died. Poor boy."

Nobody asked about the tournament, probably because they did not know what it was. James had needed to look it up as well. He activated the pensieve again.

"_Voldemort forces Harry to duel. It turns out their wands are brothers. And so the spells connect into the effect known as Priori Incantatem. Soon the victims of Voldemort's last few spells appear, including you and Lily, and you tell Harry to grab the cup again. Somehow it teleports him and the body of the other champion back to Hogwarts."_

Another pause while Frank was the first to ask: "We did not really get this part. Do you know what he means by Priori Incantatem sir? All William could say was that you called it that way when Harry described it to you. Or is going to describe it… never mind."

Dumbledore smiled before he said: "It is also known as the brother wand effect. If two wands that share cores from the same animal are forced to fight each other their spells connect. A sort of connection between the two wands will appear and the duelling wizards will have to try and overpower each other's will. The loser's wand will then show shadows of its earlier spells."

"You mean that Harry has more willpower than Voldemort?" Lily asked, clearly shocked by the idea.

Dumbledore carefully thought about his answer before he replied: "I am not sure. It is possible of course, but likely the situation also helped. Harry was hanging on for his life while Voldemort was most likely just surprised by the turn of events."

Lily nodded and James started the pensieve again. _"The ministry will refuse to believe that Voldemort returned. And so Dumbledore starts some kind of organization to fight Voldemort while the ministry just tries to discredit him and Harry. At the end of the fifth year Harry is lured to the hall of prophecies inside the ministry. There is a fight between Harry, five other students and a group of death eaters.__ Reinforcements__ of Dumbledore's__ organisation arrive__. But just before he himself arrives Harry's godfather is killed. Harry tracks his murderer through the ministry until he runs into Voldemort himself. But Dumbledore followed him and keeps the dark lord occupied until a group of aurors and the minister appear and the dark lord flees.__ This way they finally realized that__ Voldemort__ returned__. But Harry is up for a tough summer since he partly blames himself about his godfather's death."_

"Aw crap, future-me is a worthless godfather. First imprisoned, then dead." Sirius drily commented. "Thank Merlin that we can change all that."

"At least you know what happens to you. His godmother was not even mentioned once so far." Alice replied. Then she turned to Frank: "Did you ask him what happens to us?"

"Yes, but apparently Harry never really has much contact with us. He does meet Neville though, he was one of those five fellow students in the ministry." Frank replied.

Alice shook her head: "I can not understand why we will not be there for your son Lily."

"I am sure you have your reasons Alice. I just hope we can alter those as well." Lily replied.

Alice sighed: "Will be quite hard if we do not know what we have to change."

"It is quite possible that all kind of things will change if we decide to alter history." Dumbledore tried to help. But Frank just glared at him: "If? Of course we will change it."

"Let's just listen to the next part." James interjected, before the discussion would get too out of hand. He pushed the button again and they all started listening once more.

"_During sixth year Dumbledore will start giving Harry private lessons about Voldemort. Most interesting is that he discovered how Voldemort anchored his soul. He created foul devices named horcruxes," _Dumbledore gasped, but did not say anything. So James let the pensieve continue, _"that house parts of his soul. __As I__ said__, Harry__ already destroyed__ one. Dumbledore killed another one during the summer before sixth year. __And__ he__ has been working on finding more. There are seven in total. At the end of the year, he takes Harry to go and collect another one. Sadly, I can not see where. There is a sort of black cloud around the location. When they return to Hogwarts Dumbledore is severely weakened from the trip and gets killed by his own death eater spy."_

Another pause. He had expected a shocked Dumbledore, but the old man just frowned: "Really? That is odd."

"What is? That a spy betrays you? It is almost in the job description." Sirius objected.

"Well, I thought I could trust him. Maybe he somehow had to this? For the greater good?" Dumbledore replied. They all looked at him in confusion, not quite sure what the man was going on about. Eventually, James simple pressed the button again.

"_Sadly the horcrux was already removed and they only found a fake. In seventh year Harry does not return to Hogwarts. It is important to know that Dumbledore leaves him a gift in his will. Hidden in that gift is the second of the deathly hallows. The resurrection stone."_

"Wait. The hallows actually exist?" Alice asked, clearly flabbergasted by the idea.

"What are they anyway?" Lily wanted to know. Of course, as a muggleborn she had never heard the story. James quickly explained it to her. And then he surprised everybody but Frank by saying: "The third deathly hallow is actually upstairs in our room."

It was the first time he had ever seen the headmaster speechless. Actually, it was Sirius who said: "You mean that cloak we used to sneak to the kitchens was a hallow?"

"Yep." James smiled, "Dad always told me not to tell anyone. But it has been a family heirloom for centuries. I always thought one of you would some day realise that the cloak was too good compared to other invisibility cloaks."

Sirius slowly shook his head: "Never really thought about it. But now that you mention it."

"Could I borrow it sometime James?" Dumbledore asked, "I would love to study it for a while."

"Sure, why not." James shrugged. "How did you get the resurrection stone by the way?"

"I have no idea." The old man admitted, "I guess it will happen somewhere between now and my death. I have never seen it as far as I know. Although I do have the first hallow of course." He pulled out his wand to more surprised gasps: "Grindelwald obtained it somehow, and I took it from him."

James grinned before he pressed the button again and said: "We are ruining William's story this way."

"_During the year Harry and his two best friends will not return to Hogwarts. Instead, they try and hunt down the other horcruxes. They find the first one, the one that he had tried to collect with Dumbledore, had ended up inside the ministry. Since the ministry was taken over by Voldemort's forces it was a tough job to get it. But they managed. Yet, they have no way to destroy it. A bit later one of his friends betrays him again, partly under the influence of the horcrux, and he leaves Hermione and Harry on their own. Still he returns just in time to save Harry from certain death while he tries to get Gryffindor's sword out of a frozen lake. Together they use the sword to destroy the horcrux. Interestingly enough it was brought there by the same death eater spy that killed Dumbledore."_

There were some confused glances at this, and a satisfied nod from Dumbledore. But nobody cared to interrupt William for it. _"Then they are captured by death eaters. But they manage not only to escape but to rescue another of their friends, a wand maker and a goblin. Maybe even more important, he manages to grab a wand from the boy that actually disarmed Dumbledore just before he was killed by the spy."_  
"Interesting… Very interesting." Dumbledore muttered, but he did not made a move to explain what was interesting and James decided to let the pensieve continue:_ "Somehow Harry found out that one of the horcruxes was hidden in Gringotts. And he manages to get the goblin to help him retrieve it. However, the goblin demands Gryffindor's sword in payment. So once again, they have a horcrux but no way to destroy it. That is not the most urgent problem though. Voldemort has finally learned what they are doing. And he starts checking his horcruxes. Somehow Harry hears about this and they run to Hogwarts, where one of the last two horcruxes is hidden. They do not manage to get in undetected. But the teachers, some members of Dumbledore's organisation and a lot of the older students decide to guard the castle while Harry looks for the horcrux. Meanwhile, his friends get some fangs from the monster Harry defeated in second year, which can also destroy horcruxes. _

_The only remaining horcrux is Voldemort's pet snake. But although they find out where he is they are distracted when the dark lord summons the spy that killed Dumbledore and kills him. Apparently under the impression that it would grant him full control of the elder wand. The man is left to die while Voldemort and the snake disappear. He manages to hand a few memories to Harry. And while Voldemort calls for a short ceasefire Harry enters a pensieve with the memories. I can not follow him inside there, but whatever is said in them makes Harry leave Hogwarts and surrender himself to Voldemort."_

"NO! Why would he do that?" Lily protested. But James did not stop the projection. He knew she would be happy with the next part.

"_Since Harry had disarmed the boy that disarmed Dumbledore, and Dumbledore was the former master of the elder wand, it now belonged to him. Although Voldemort carried it. Harry also got the second and third hallow. As you might know the legend says that the one who commands all three hallows would be master of death. And I can only guess that this is the reason why Harry does not die when Voldemort fires another killing curse at him. He pretends to be dead though, and Voldemort has his body carried to the castle so he can gloat about his victory. Frank, your son actually is the one to somehow summon the sword of Gryffindor and beheads the snake with it. That pretty much starts a confusing fight between the death eaters, the remaining defenders and their reinforcements that suddenly arrive. Soon enough all death eaters are dead or captured, and Harry challenges Voldemort for the last time. He manages to defeat him, and after that I can see no more since the prophecy is fulfilled by Voldemort's final death."_

James turned it off again: "So this is what will happen if we all obliviate ourselves now and do nothing."

"I am not going to die just to give Harry a shitty life like this." Lily firmly decided. And James just nodded, he had reached the same conclusion.

"I fully agree with you." Dumbledore said, "However, we will have to be careful about how to avoid this. I think our first goal is to destroy Voldemort's body so we get a long period of relative quiet. But we have to do it without letting any of you die. I admit I do not see any likely options so far."

"What about an ambush? It seems he will be here all alone next week. We can easily hide some forty wands around or so." Frank suggested.

Dumbledore shook his head: "Voldemort is very much attuned to magic by now. I am afraid he would pick up those wands from a distance and then simply return or call for reinforcements. We want to avoid both. After all, this is our best chance. Now that we know where he will be."

"Maybe we should first watch the rest before we sit down for a long planning session." James suggested.

"There is more?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, the prophecy itself. Remember?" James grinned.

"Oh, Yeah."

Once again William appeared. _"I will try to clarify the parts of the prophecy. Although I admit there is some room for error since I am not the original seer._

_The first part is rather easy to understand: 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ...' It simply points out that your son is the one that will be able to destroy the dark lord. Well, in fact, it points to both your sons. The next part makes sure it is Harry; 'And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal'. As soon as Voldemort decided to target Harry first it was sure that the prophecy referred to Harry._

"_Does it have anything to do with that scar he got from the attack?" Pensieve-James wanted to know._

_William waved impatiently: "No, not at all. That is just a scar as far as I can tell. However, the next part of the prophecy is much more interesting. 'But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not', I believe this is about Harry becoming the master of death by combining the three deathly hallows. I think Voldemort went so far with his horcruxes that even after they are gone he can not be killed by just anyone. It takes the master of death to do it. And likewise, Harry does not die from that killing curse on the night of the final battle. How else should we explain that?"_

James pushed the pause button again to see if anyone wanted to comment on this. It seems Dumbledore was thinking rather hard about something, but he did not say anything aloud. So he continued.

"_Then the next part. 'And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives'. Personally, I would not put too much stock into this. I am sure that if you manage to turn Voldemort into a helpless squib and then throw him into Azkaban Harry would have a very happy life not caring one moment if the dark lord still survived or not. And I am not quite sure if Harry can only die by Voldemort's hand, although as I said the opposite might very well be true. Still I would not try it on Harry. _

_Then the last part 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies'. Pretty much redundant, it already said so in the first few lines. Maybe it is mentioned again because it is very rare that someone can become the master of death. It takes a huge amount of magical strength, but also a very strong will and strength of character."_

_Pensieve-James asked another question: "If we try and change things, is it possible that we ruin it somehow? I mean, this way is far from perfect. But at least Voldemort dies in the end."_

_William thought about this for a few minutes: "I believe there are two key parts that should be followed. Destroy the horcruxes, and make sure Harry receives all three hallows. If you manage that I am sure you would be fine. However, every small move can change a lot of circumstances. For example, if you two survive Halloween and give Harry a great youth with lots of friends he might feel less of a connection with Hermione Granger. And she will be very important. Or maybe the scar helps him understand Voldemort somehow, he made some very strange guesses in his final year… Kevan told me there was no seer blood in the Potter family?" After Pensieve-James shook his head he continued: "What about your wife's?"_

"_She was muggleborn. And as far as I know she never made prophecies herself."_

"_Odd." William mused. "Still, I stand by what I said. Destroy the horcruxes, make Harry master of death and all should work out fine. Of course, destroying Voldemort's body would be a great idea. Apparently it took him a long time to recover."_

James decided to end the memory there. The important things were said anyway. He turned to the others and said: "Well, you heard it. That is our job. And I hope we will manage to find a way in which we all come through relatively unharmed."

_A/N: Well, I hope you all liked Williams comments. It seems he made a few mistakes, but then he warned them it would be better to ask the original seer didn't he? Now I guess we'll just have to wait and see if those mistakes will be important;)_

_An amazing twelve reviews this time! I do not think I ever had that many at once in one of my other stories. I'd do a happy dance if I could dance, but most likely I would only scare the cats with it. So instead I'll just reply to all those wonderful reviews:_


	6. Altering the future

**Altering the future**

After a small break, during which everybody emptied another glass of firewhiskey, they all gathered together in the living room again. James was the last to join them and he just noticed Lily handing some small items to Alice. She said: "See, as long as both you and Frank wear one of those rings and Neville wears the bracelet both of you can immediately portkey all three of you to Lionfire Hall."

"Oh? You managed to finish the rings then Lily? What happened?" James asked, knowing that she had been experiencing some troubles in the creation of her family teleport rings for a while now.

"Yes." Lily nodded, "I have a set for us as well. And I managed to find some interesting books in Albus' library."

"What exactly did you do Lily?" Dumbledore, who had been silently pondering deep thoughts for a while, suddenly asked.

"Oh, I created a set of matched portkeys. If one of the two rings is activated both ring wearers and the wearer of the bracelet are portkeyed to a safe spot." Lily shortly explained, "I thought it would be a good idea for our families."

Dumbledore actually looked surprised: "Yes. Quite so. May I ask how you managed this extraordinary feat?"

Lily smiled proudly: "Well, you have this wonderful book about how to create similar matrixes, so I just…"

She was interrupted by a cough from Sirius: "Maybe we should focus on what we just learned about Harry's future first?" Lily immediately nodded in agreement, but of course Sirius had to ruin it by adding: "Beside that, you spent all day with that book. I was all alone…"

"Like you cared." Lily muttered, "You were playing with Harry."

Frank interrupted: "However, I do believe Sirius had a point. We should work out what we can do to improve the future." After a short silence he added: "I was wondering about something… Maybe you know an answer, since you guys know Peter."

"Not so sure about that anymore." James drily added.

Frank just nodded and continued: "I am quite sure William told us that Peter only betrayed your location to Voldemort on Halloween. Why would he wait five days? Why not go and tell him today."

James had to think about that. It was a good question. Unsurprisingly it was Lily who replied: "I think he needed to gather some courage to make that final step. Beside that, Sirius said he would be watching him… I guess in the original timeline you left him alone on Halloween Sirius."

Sirius immediately paled at that. James figured he felt guilty for something that had not happened yet, but Sirius just said: "You are right. And now I waste my time here while I should be keeping an eye on him. After all, we need to make sure Peter only tells Voldie on Halloween, otherwise we can not predict when he shows up here. I'm going! I'll make a quick visit tomorrow morning to hear what has been decided." And with a pop he apparated away.

"That was quick." Alice commented.

"Yeah, that's Sirius." James grinned. "Anyway, how are we going to handle this?"

"I believe we should work out a plan for Halloween first." Dumbledore suggested, "I would prefer to find another way to destroy Voldemort's body, preferably without losing anybody."

"Definitely." Frank agreed, "But you said he would spot any kind of magical ambush?"

Dumbledore gravely nodded: "Yes, I have been trying to think of wards that would partially blind him. But although there are some wards that hide magic, I do not believe them strong enough to stand against the likes of Voldemort."

Lily suddenly laughed: "Well, if extra magical defences are no option I guess the solution is obvious, isn't it?" When everybody just looked at her in confusion she sighed: "Purebloods… I mean we should add some muggle defences, he has no way to detect those."

James thought about that for a second. He guessed his wife was right that Voldemort would not be able to detect muggle defences, nor would he expect them. But he had no clue what the muggle world had to offer that could possible harm Voldemort. It turned out that he was not the only one when Dumbledore replied: "There is some poetic justice in defeating Voldemort with muggle instruments. But to be honest I have no idea how to do so. Although I am officially a halfblood I'll admit my focus has been on the magical world for far too long. What do you suggest Lily?"

Lily had a thoughtful look on her face, and James could almost hear her brain working. She mumbled: "At first I thought about a bazooka or something. But we'll need to train in how to use it and we do not have time. Beside that, he could dodge or something." All the others just shrugged at each other. Apparently they had just as much ideas about what a bazooka was as James himself. That is to say, absolutely none. Then Lily suddenly brightened: "I know! Land mines! Some that we can detonate ourselves when he is on the pathway, so they will not make any innocent victims."

James was the first to ask: "What are land mines?" He was quite sure it had nothing to do with copper or iron mines. Sadly, he had no idea what other mines existed.

Lily blinked a few times before she said: "Land mines are explosive devices that are buried underground. Most of them explode as soon as somebody walks above them, but we should get a few that have a remote control. Just to avoid accidents."

James swallowed by the idea of hidden explosive devices that would kill random passers-by. It sounded even more random than death eater terrorist attacks. But eventually he said: "It sounds like a good idea. But are you sure they will kill Voldemort?"

Lily nodded: "Oh yes. As long as he does not expect the blast I am sure it will destroy his body."

"How can we get some of those land mines?" Dumbledore asked, "I admit that I am not that familiar with the muggle world, but I imagine they are not that easy to get?"

Lily shook her head: "No, I guess I will have to go to an army base and throw some compulsion charms around or something like that."

Dumbledore looked like he wanted to object, but Lily's fierce eyes made him reconsider. Alice changed the subject: "So, let's for a moment assume that Voldemort survives those mines. Then what will you do?"

"Activate our new portkeys and head for Lionfire Hall." James immediately replied without a single doubt. "We can work out some new way to destroy Voldemorts body."

Everybody agreed with that. It seemed nobody thought sacrificing both James and Lily to destroy the dark lords body was a good trade.

Eventually it was Dumbledore who said: "I believe this is the best idea for Halloween." Clearly, he was not to enthusiastic about it. And he added: "If we think of something better we should contact each other again. But for now let's talk about some other matters that William mentioned. I believe I should contact the owner of the philosophers stone and tell him Voldemort will someday try to get it. Knowing him like I do, I believe he will destroy the stone."

"But…" Frank protested, "Why would anyone destroy the stone? I mean, who would give up unlimited gold and immortality?"

"Even immortality gets old after a while." Dumbledore vaguely replied, "But of course, it is his choice to make. Not mine."

Frank just shook his head in wonder, but he replied: "Alright then. I guess you will also start to research those horcruxes?"

"Yes, that was the second thing I wrote down on my imaginary to-do-list. Along with finding the resurrection stone, although I have no idea where to start." Dumbledore cheerfully replied.

James shook his head about the old mans antics, but he asked anyway: "Anything more on that imaginary list headmaster?"

"I believe you all should start addressing me as Albus. You have definitely earned it by now." Dumbledore replied, before he waved his hand, "But that is not what you asked. I plan to check up with my death eater spy, just to be sure that I can trust him. Although, in the end William's story only reassured me."

James reluctantly nodded. After all, William had said something about how Dumbledore's murderer had provided Harry with some memories. But it still sounded insane to him. "I believe Harry's other Hogwarts adventures can wait for a while. We'll have years to decide about what to do about them. Maybe we should think about how we can prepare Harry for Hogwarts in general? I mean, no matter what we do, with Voldemort still around his school years will be crazy one way or another."

"I want to train him in advance." Lily immediately replied. "I know he will not be able to get a wand until the summer before Hogwarts. But we can give him a head start in subjects like potions, herbology, astronomy, ancient runes and maybe even care of magical creatures and arithmancy. Especially arithmancy should help during more practical classes like charms and transfiguration."

James nodded and added: "Yes, we could try some wandless magic too. Not that he will be able to do anything with it, but it might help him train his magical strength and control. And maybe some martial arts or other physical activities? He should be in good shape." After a few seconds he added: "Beside that, we should of course try and provide him with a happy childhood. So let's try to focus all extra training to one or two days a week at most."

"Yes, that is the most important job for any parent I believe." Dumbledore solemnly added.

Suddenly Alice asked: "Do you think Neville could join in on those extra training? If he is anything like his father he will be at the front of any battle."

"Look who is talking." Frank drily added, but Lily was already nodding: "Of course Alice. I always hoped our sons would spend time together anyway."

Alice simply beamed at her and James looked to Frank and thoughtfully added: "Maybe we could get some of our families' traditional allies involved as well. The Weasleys have some kids of about the right age. And I think there is that Bones' girl. Maybe that boy from Amos Diggory? Although he is a bit older I think. And what about the Lovegoods? Do they already have a kid? What about the MacMillans?"

"I believe you will have a hard time convincing any of those parents to let their kids come to Lionfire Hall that often." Dumbledore cautioned him, "But I applaud the idea. It would be most interesting to see a few well prepared students enter Hogwarts in some ten years."

James nodded in agreement, although he was sure Dumbledore had much more faith in Lily's teachings. Of course, the man had a point. Traditionally most pureblood families would home school their kids and keep them at home most of the time. But still, maybe he could convince them somehow.

"Maybe we can invite that muggleborn girl as well? Hermione Granger?" Lily asked, "I know I would have loved an introduction course before Hogwarts. And if she is really such a good ally for Harry she can use the extra training as well."

"Again, it depends on what her parents want. But I will find out their address for you. It should be available at Hogwarts by now." Dumbledore replied.

For a while they kept talking about their plans. But soon they decided that they had made a good plan for Halloween. And that all other matters would be worked out on a later time. So eventually Dumbledore left for Hogwarts, taking James' invisibility cloak with him. Frank and Alice picked up Neville and went back to their own house as well. Jenny also moved back to Lionfire Hall, which left only James and Lily next to a peacefully sleeping Harry.

"Are we doing the right thing James?" Lily asked while looking down at Harry.

"Of course we are. Don't tell me you liked William's description of Harry's future." James calmly replied.

"No, of course not." Lily shook her head frantically while muttering her sister's name a few times. "But now we plan to turn him into a little warrior. It is not really the childhood I wished for him."

"I know." James agreed, "But at least he will have Neville and hopefully a few other friends."

Lily sighed: "I guess so." Then after a long silence she continued: "James? You know how we always said we wanted more than one child?"

"Yes?"

"I want to wait." Lily said. And when she noticed James' surprised expression she continued: "It would not be fair to Harry's brother or sister. I mean, with all the effort we will have to do to prepare Harry there is no way that we can offer the same amount of attention and energy to another child."

James thought about this for a while. He himself had grown up without brothers or sisters, and because of that he had always wanted a larger family. But he could hardly disagree with Lily's statement. Eventually he nodded, pulled her close to him and kissed her on the top of her head: "You are right of course. And we can have more kids after Voldemort is gone."

.o0o.

With a sigh James wiped some of the sweat of his brow. Next to him his good friend Remus Lupin was cheerfully digging along. Not caring one moment about either the work or the burning sun. Stupid werewolf stamina. Two days ago Lily and James had told Remus all about what happened during the last few days. And yesterday he had accompanied James in the house while Lily went out to obtain some land mines. Lily had returned late in the evening carrying a huge bag filled with strange plastic canisters.

So this morning Remus had returned carrying two shovels. Lily had argued that they should bury the mines manually, since Voldemort might be able to discover traces of magic if they buried the mines by magic.

It was a good point of course. But James could not say he liked the workout. First they had carefully lifted about five feet of the flagstone path directly in front of the door. And now they were digging a hole of about two feet deep and wide in that area. Remus had been smart enough to bring a large piece of cloth on which they piled the earth. That way there would be no traces.

But still, they were only halfway and James already started to feel his back because of the unfamiliar work. Remus simply kept on working while he took a small break. A few minutes after he also started digging again a cheerful voice sounded: "Now that's a sight. James Potter working hard."

He stood up, happy with an excuse for another break and scowled at Sirius: "But thank Merlin! Sirius Black has come to take over for a while."

Sirius grinned: "You know I would love to help you mate. But I am only here for a few minutes until I return to Peter. And I can hardly come back covered in dirt, he might suspect something."

James just scowled again while Remus also dropped his shovel and drily said: "Well, he actually has a good excuse to be lazy today."

"Hey Remus!" Sirius waved cheerfully. "Having fun? Oh, by the way, Peter seems to think you are a traitor."

Remus shrugged: "I can not say that surprises me. Last week, he was telling me how he suspected you to be a spy for Voldemort." Then he added in a cold tone that was very much unlike him: "Stupid bastard, I still think we should kill him."

James tried to distract him: "Didn't Peter ever try to frame me?"

Remus and Sirius both laughed at that. Then Remus replied: "That would be plain stupid. Nobody would believe that. And he lacked a clear reason to blame you. I mean, I take it he tried the 'dark creature' approach for me Sirius?"

Sirius nodded: "Yep, 'dark family' for me I guess?"

"Obviously."

Sirius grinned: "Predictable. Yet, he made some very good arguments. Mentioned how information from a few discussions we had amongst the marauders reached Voldemort somehow… and more stuff like that. If we had not learned a few new things during the last few years I might have actually started to doubt you."

James was shocked at this. He would never distrust Sirius or Remus. But maybe he was too trusting. After all… Three days ago, he would have said the same about Peter.

When nobody replied to Sirius last statement he continued: "Anyway, I should go back to Peter soon. More acting nice…"

"How do you stand it anyway?" Remus asked, "I would have hurt the little creep by now."

Sirius looked a bit worried by this reaction. And James also studied his friend for a few seconds. Normally Remus was very gentle and forgiving, but it looked like Peter's betrayal really angered him. For a few seconds he almost felt pity for Peter. He had only once seen Remus react like this, during sixth year when Sirius had tried to lure Snape to Remus during a full moon. It had taken a few months and countless apologies before Remus even wanted to talk with Sirius again. Of course, this time Peter would not get that opportunity. He could try apologising to Azkaban's dementors instead.

Sirius shrugged in reply to Remus: "I know Peter will get his just reward in a few days. I take it Lily got those muggle things?"

"Yeah, they are in the house. She is working out how to operate the remote control." James replied while waving towards the cottage.

"Ah." Sirius nodded, like he had any idea what that was supposed to mean. "Anyway, as I said, I should go back soon. I just wanted to tell you that I believe I know why Peter managed to inform Voldemort on Halloween. I mean… would have managed… or…"

"Never mind that." James interrupted Sirius attempts to work out the timeline, "So, what happened?"

"Oh, I just received an invitation for a Halloween dinner from Amelia." Sirius replied. James and Remus grinned at each other. For years Sirius had a strange kind of relation with the fierce red haired senior auror, every now and then it looked like they were a couple, but then they would not see each other for a few months. Lily always said that Amelia Bones was waiting for Sirius to grow up a bit. Not only was she a few years older than Sirius, she was also much more serious. But there was no way that Sirius would refuse a date with her. Most likely he would apologise to Peter and then leave him a way to contact Sirius somehow in an emergency. But this would only let Peter know he finally had some time alone after Sirius left for Amelia.

Finally James turned back to Sirius: "Well, that explains it I guess."

"You're not mad at me?" Sirius asked, clearly surprised.

James shrugged: "You have not done anything yet. And beside that, I am sure it would not have been on purpose. And now it works out for the best anyway. You just go and have fun."

"Oh, I already told Amelia I could not make it." When Sirius noticed their surprised expressions he continued: "What? It is not like I will be able to have a nice date while wondering if Voldemort is already attacking you. Instead, I invited her for a party on the day after Halloween."

"What party?" Remus asked.

"Well, the victory party of course. You two are invited as well. I figured Voldie's first defeat earns a party." Sirius grinned.

"And how are you going to explain to Amelia that you knew this?" Remus drily asked.

Sirius blinked a few times in surprise: "I guess I have to tell her I changed the purpose of the party or so."

James just grinned, he was glad to see that normal life was continuing even despite all the recent drama. "We will be there Sirius."

"Good! I am heading back to Peter then. Don't want him to get any ideas." Sirius said.

"Yeah, we have to go back to digging." James replied, although he did not feel like it yet. "After all, Halloween is in two days."

_A/N: And another chapter done. I tried not to spend too much time on the first part of the chapter. After all, if I discuss their plans too much you would not have to read the rest of the story anymore. Although I guess those plans can be ruined by all kind of things;) And I could hardly just skip that little discussion. Hope you liked the idea of landmines, and the plans for pre-Hogwarts schooling. Let me know what you think about using landmines against a wizard like Voldemort._

_Twelve reviews this time. You guys are great :D_

_Tuefel1987: Between this review and that earlier one about logic I get the impression that you're not really a Hermione fan, right?;) Anyway I fully agree that Ron was just as important as Hermione. But as I explained William was bound to make some mistakes in his viewings since the original prophecy wasn't his. I guess you could argue that singling out Hermione was one of those mistakes (to be quite honest I just needed to get her name into the story somehow. But it sounds cooler if I make it sound like a story issue:D)._

_Dogsby: I suppose that is because it is a lot easier to stick to canon instead of working out a living James and Lily and all that. You'll just have to wait to find out what happens here I guess:)_

_RavenAtNight, VampHunter001, mwinter and Rainbow2007: Thanks for reviewing! Hope you are still interested after this chapter:) (Sorry for putting you all together. But all reviews were more or less the same so it made sense not too list the same reply every time)_

_Anon: Sorry to hear that. Would have liked some explanation about 'oozes out fail', I'm always willing to learn after all;)_

_Fawkes Flame: I am honoured to be in your favourite story list:) _

_Justpucky: Ah, but if everything works out according to the plans made in this chapter Harry will not even receive his scar. Nor will he be the boy-who-lived I guess. Anyway, I guess William was right when he said he did not want to study the prophecy again after it had been altered with. Even I have trouble considering all possible different futures. And I am the one trying to write it!:P_

_ILikeComps: Lily worked something out;) Of course, we will have to wait until next chapter to see how it works. _

_Serena Bluemoon: You had to wait a bit longer this time. Sorry about that;) Interesting to see that you also felt that way about Ron after last chapter. Looking back, maybe I should have made William mention both Ron and Hermione. Although I feel Hermione might play a bigger part than Ron in this story. Still, there will be no Weasley bashing or anything like that (well, maybe Percy if he acts stupid again)._

_Ty Rose: Why cringe about the cloak? I mean, it is not like they would have been able to kill Voldemort with it? I hope the new chapter was worth the wait._


	7. Halloween

**Halloween**

James tried to hide the queasy nervous feeling that he was experiencing. Harry had woke up a few hours ago and he was sitting on the ground charming small coloured flying balls to distract both the kid and himself. Lily was smiling at them, although every now and then the smile turned into an uncomfortable grimace.

Earlier that day Sirius had floo called to say that he had left Peter alone. And from that time on they had been waiting in a rather tense atmosphere. Lily had pretended to read for a while, but James had to tell her three times that her book was upside down before she finally turned it around. He himself had just been nervously wandering through the living room until Harry woke up. All that time he kept an eye on the window. By now dusk was coming, and he somewhat hoped Voldemort would come quick and not wait for full darkness. He suddenly started to wonder if William had ever mentioned how Voldemort would attack. Or had they just took it for granted that the crazy dark wizard would be arrogant enough to walk over the pathway? If he decided to fly through a window on the second floor their land mines would be pretty much useless. He tried to remember that part of Williams vision, but could not find the exact words.

Just when he wanted to tell Lily about his new worries he saw a dark robed figure approaching. For a few seconds he stared at the figure, wanting to make sure it was Voldemort and not some dressed up kid coming around for candy. But as soon as the figure reached a hand towards the iron gate he saw the clear outline of a wand.

He let the coloured balls dissapear and ignored Harry's protest while he jumped up and shouted: "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off…"

They had prepared that line. And Lily had told him he should sound fearful while using it. Strangely enough, that was not even difficult. Lily also looked convincing when she picked up Harry and ran upstairs. He jumped towards the remote control and carefully peeked through the window.

Voldemort apparently noticed him and a cold smirk showed up on his face. James tried not to feel intimidated but just counted the distance between Voldemort and the front door.

Ten…

Eight…

Seven…

Five… His finger moved towards the button of the remote control.

Four… One more step.

Three… He pushed.

A huge explosion deafened him while a bright orange light blinded him. An instant later splinters of glass and wood smashed into his face. Than a huge blast of air propelled him backwards until he smashed into the far wall.

For a while he just lay down there, trying to get his ears and eyes to work again while ignoring the pain in his back and legs. He also tried to ignore the thick sticky stream of blood that was running down from his forehead. Most likely it was not the only wound.

Eventually, after what felt like a really long time, his eyesight seemed to return a bit. Although everything looked fuzzy. He was not sure if that was because his eyes were still recovering or because his glasses were gone. And he lacked the energy to even feel if his glasses were actually gone. Slowly he let his eyes drift around. Soon he saw that the front wall and door had pretty much dissapeared. Instead he saw some small smoldering fires and a huge crater. There was no sign of Voldemort, James could only assume that he had been blown into nothingness. Although Lily had warned him he had never expected such an explosion.

Slowly turning his head he saw that part of the stairway had also been blasted away. With some effort he managed to shift his neck a bit so he could look upwards. He saw Lily standing there. She was looking towards him, most likely with a worried expression. Although he could not actually see it, his eyesight was still a bit fuzzy.

He tried to raise an arm to wave reassuringly, but a red hot pain shot through him as soon as he did. Then he tried to say something, but the only thing he managed were a few croaks. At least, he thought he did. He was still deaf, so maybe he just imagined his mouth making noises.

He noticed that Lily was suddenly frantically waving and pointing at something. And he slowly turned his head back towards the former front door. A strange formless green cloud was slowly drafting towards him. James had no idea what it was, but it did not feel good. Slowly moving his eyes towards his own hand he saw that he was still clutching his wand. And it was aimed more or less in the direction of the cloud. He tried to say 'protego', but only a few small orange sparks erupted from his wand. Next he tried to focus through all the pain he felt and cast a wordless shield charm. It somewhat worked, but even with his poor eyesight he thought the shield that appeared was flimsy at best.

Lily shot a few spells into the green mass, but he had no clue what spells they were. It seemed they did not even manage to slow it down though. The oddly pulsating green cloud did stop moving when it was in front of James. It was close enough to touch it. Or at least, it would have been if James had been able to lift his arms.

He just looked at it in confusion. Maybe his thoughts were still a bit slow from the explosion, but he had no clue what he was looking at. However, he was aware enough to feel panicked when a thick tentacle appeared on top of the cloud. The thing slowly started to drift towards him and pushed through his shield like it did not exist. It moved straight for the wound on his forehead.

He tried to look past the green cloud to see what Lily was doing. And he just noticed her bringing her hands together before suddenly he felt a pain far beyond any pain he had ever felt before. It was like his arms and legs were ripped from his body while piercing hot swords were pushed through his eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Beside that he was sure he felt some ribs cracking before he was thankfully taken in by a sweet, comforting and numb darkness…

_A/N: And that was Halloween. A pretty short chapter, but I figured it deserved its very own chapter. And I did not really see the need to add more text just for chapter size. On a side note, 'Wisdom of a seer' already has received more favourite story alerts than any of my other stories :D_

_Another 11 reviews. A couple more chapters like this and this story will also have the most reviews of all my stories so far;)_

_Tuefeul1987: I can see what you mean about Hermione in fanon. Although there are some nice fanfics in which she is very 'human'. But she has a few very strong qualities that are hard to ignore when writing fanfic. I mean, a lazy or dumb Hermione would just be weird. Still, I'll try to avoid the trapdoor that leads to super-Hermione in this fanfic:) _

_ILikeComps: It makes sense somehow, doesn't it?:) Although looking back now they should have studied the manual a bit better…_

_Happylady: Great to hear that, hope I will see you more often!_

_Eaglesnest: Yeah, it is quite fun to write as well. I just hope I will not make any too obvious mistakes in my time line:)_

_Katzztar: Muggle games are a good idea yeah. Funnily enough I used them for the same reason in another story that I am working on, but somehow I did not make the link yet in this story. As to Sirius/ Amelia, I do plan to keep this story focused on the Potters. But since James seems to be very interested in his friends love life I am sure this couple will get some more attention as well._

_Entoarox: 8/10 huh? I like that. I think William already declared Harry to be the one involved in the prophecy, although I guess no one will call him the BWL now. And William was a bit 'wonky' because it was not his own prophecy, so he was bound to make some mistakes. Looking back to your review and some others I think I did not work that part out enough:) _

_Ty Rose: Ah, I see what you mean now. I will try not to change those kinds of things if I do not need to. After all, if there is no reason for something to be different in this timeline it should still happen in the same way. Although most likely those similarities will become fewer and fewer._

_Schnuff: I fully agree that time travel/ prophecy altering is hardly logical. But it still can be great fun;) However, I will try to work on a 'realistic' story based on Williams viewing. Of course, one of the interesting things is that Voldemort will also have to behave differently. For example, right now he did not see a killing curse rebounding from Harry, that should change his ideas a bit from canon, right?_

_Serena Bluemoon: I see it as another kind of physical training, so there are no plans to Harry performing roundhouse kicks on Voldemort. I guess that could be an interesting fanfic as well, using a stronger body against strong magic. But it won't be this fanfic;) Beside that, if that is the solution they should just send in Hagrid._

_My Flawed Design: Good to hear. I try to stick to a three-day update routine._

_Fudgebaby: And again: good to hear:) _


	8. The aftermath

**The aftermath**

It took him a lot of effort, but after what felt like a long time he managed to open his eyes. Immediately, he had to shut them again because of the bright light, but he managed to see recognise the lamp on the ceiling above him. It looked like James was back in his own bedroom in Lionfire Hall. He sighed in relief.

A soft voice that he knew to be Lily's asked: "James?"

He tried to answer but it was very difficult. Still, she noticed he was awake because there was a bit of rumour when several people moved around. Then a cold piece of cloth was pressed to his mouth. Somebody seemed to squeeze into it, and a small amount of liquid trickled down between his lips. A warm but firm hand moved over his neck to help him swallow it.

Apparently it was some kind of potion, for as soon as he swallowed it he felt a stream of energy coursing through his body. Again, he opened his eyes, a lot faster this time. He saw that Lily, Remus, Dumbledore and madam Pomfrey were gathered around his bed.

"What happened?" He asked.

Lily smiled at him, although a few tears were running down her cheeks: "I am so happy that you finally woke up. Madam Pomfrey was really worried about you." She turned to the healer and asked: "But he will be okay now, right?"

The healer nodded gravely: "As long as he stays in bed for a week or two. Only then will I remove the braces and other protections. You took a severe beating James."

James just looked on in confusion before he asked again: "What happened?"

This time it was Dumbledore who replied: "Poppy? If you are done with James for now, maybe you could leave us alone for a while? We will make sure that he does not stand up."

Madam Pomfrey reluctantly nodded before she stood up and left the room. As soon as the door closed Remus explained: "She does not know about the land mines. And Sirius suggested that we do not spread the knowledge about them. Right now there are all kind of crazy rumours about how you and Lily fought with Voldemort."

Even in his befuddled state James could see the advantages of those rumours. But right now he did not really care. Once more he asked: "So, what happened? Is Harry okay? And where is Sirius?"

"Harry is fine, Jenny is with him in the nursery." Lily replied, then she looked grave while she answered his last question: "Sirius is with Amelia. Her brother and sister-in-law were killed by death eaters yesterday."

James was shocked by that. Eventually he whispered: "Poor Edgar. And just one day before we managed to destroy Voldemorts body."

Everybody looked a bit uncomfortable and that and Albus said: "In fact, it is now four days after Halloween. Some death eaters apparently decided to go out with a blaze. Although a huge number turned up at the ministry claiming they had been imperiused."

"Oh." James replied, he wondered how those imperius claims were being verified. Sadly, he was afraid that it had to do with the amount of galleons that accompanied the claim. Still, there was not much he could do about that so he continued: "I hoped it would all be over after Halloween."

Remus shook his head: "Some of the most dangerous death eaters are still at large. The Lestranges and Fenrir Greyback among them."

James nodded slowly. He should have expected it. It was highly unlikely that a maniac like Bellatrix Lestrange would just give up. He changed the subject: "Did we at least manage to take out Voldemort?"

"Oh yes." Dumbledore nodded cheerfully, "His body is gone for sure. Of course, we know that part of his soul is hiding somewhere. But from William's viewings we have good reason to believe that it will take him years to recover enough to become a threat again. Of course, that is no reason for us to lie down. We should keep working on his eventual final downfall."

James nodded again: "What was that green cloud that seemed to attack me? And how did we manage to escape anyway?"

"I activated our portkeys." Lily answered his last question. James softly cursed at himself, he should have remembered that himself. But he turned to Dumbledore who started to answer his other question: "I can only make an educated guess about the green cloud as you call it. Lily contacted me to investigate it and I had Fawkes bring me over. But as soon as he saw the cloud he charged it and destroyed it. I believe Voldemort damaged his own soul so much that a part of it split off when his body was destroyed. Most likely it was trying to attach itself to the nearest living being, which would have been you of course."

James blinked a few times. Although Dumbledore had explained it all in a rather cheerful tone it sounded rather bad to him. He tried to remember if William had mentioned anything about part of Voldemort's soul attacking Harry. He thought not, but hearing this made him even happier that they had managed to stop the madman before he reached their son. Then he suddenly realised something else: "I am sorry about the house, we should have buried the mines a bit farther from the door."

Dumbledore just waved his worries away: "Not to worry. I never really used the house anyway, too many memories." Before anyone could ask he quickly continued: "Beside that, I do not think any of us expected those small muggle devices to be so devastating. I am just happy that the house offered enough protection for you, although it was a close call. In fact, I might choose not to repair the house and leave it as a monument for Voldemort's first downfall. It could be good for morale."

James was not the only one to look surprised at this. But he guessed it made sense somehow, Dumbledore practically lived at Hogwarts anyway. There was a short silence until the headmaster continued: "However, I believe I should leave you three alone. I am sure you have enough to discuss. And I need to go back to Hogwarts."

"Of course." Lily replied before she stood up to show the headmaster out. James used the small break to put his thoughts back together and yawn a couple times. It was all a bit overwhelming.

As soon as Lily returned he turned to Remus: "Moony?" The smart werewolf immediately looked surprised, after they had left Hogwarts James never used their marauder nicknames anymore. So he realised that James was serious about something. "Are you still looking for a job?"

Remus shrugged: "Yeah, after that small disaster at Scrivenshafts it has become much harder. I am starting to think about working in the muggle world, why?"

James remembered how Remus had been fired at the quill shop when the manager found out that he was a werewolf. James and Sirius had played with the thought of buying the store and firing the manager. But soon they had realised that Remus would not have liked that. Still, it made him furious that the smart and gentle man could not find a job because of his condition. However, it offered an opportunity: "We will need help preparing Harry. I want to hire you as a full-time tutor or instructor for Harry and researcher for everything Voldemort related. Whatever you want to call it. That is, if Lily agrees of course." But his wife was already nodding fervently.

Silly enough it was Remus himself who objected: "I would love to help you guys. But I can not accept money for it."

"Oh, stop whining about money already." James complained before he bluntly continued: "I have enough, you don't. Beside that, I do not want you to waste time on some job that is far below you while you could help us out instead. And you will need money for when you finally find a nice girl. So, you can either accept the money or I'll just tell the goblins to dump it into your vault."

Remus looked offended while Lily was worried. Then Remus suddenly laughed: "I guess you are right. And Harry's future is more important than my pride. Not too much though, just a normal salary."

James nodded: "Sure, I'll ask Dumbledore what a starting teacher makes and give you the same." Remus was about to object again, most likely because a starting teacher would usually already have some ten to fifteen years of other work experience. But James managed to cut him off by changing the subject again: "What happened to Peter?"

Lily seemed to realise what he was doing for she immediately replied: "He escaped. Sirius wanted to hunt him down, but then we heard about Amelia's family and we managed to calm him down enough so he could go to her."

Remus nodded: "I think that if both of you had died on Halloween I would never have managed that. He would have gone to hunt down Peter. Most likely that would have destroyed any chances with Amelia, although I am still not sure what she sees in him anyway."

They all laughed at that, it seemed to be a bit of a strange matchup. The professional and reliable auror and the happy-go-lucky chaotic aristocrat. But they were happy together most of the time. And Lily still thought they would make a great couple if Sirius ever managed to grow up.

"I am sure we will catch Peter sometime." James said, "But I'll admit that I would be just as happy if the aurors do it. If I never see him again it will be soon enough."

"Yes, I agree." Remus nodded, "It would be too weird to actually fight against Peter."

Lily turned her head between the two marauders before she shrugged: "As long as he ends up in Azkaban it's all fine with me. Anyway, you should go back to sleep James. According to madam Pomfrey you will need a lot more rest. You only just survived the blast, and without her almost continuous care you would have died several times by now."

James nodded, normally he would have protested. But he felt bone tired. "Remind me to send her a thank you sometime."

Remus grinned: "That's a first. Although I guess all your Hogwarts infirmary visits combined were not half as bad as this time."

James only shrugged: "As Lily is fond of saying, I matured a bit."

"I'm not saying it is a bad thing." Remus grinned, "Now if only Sirius would do the same."

James laughed, which hurt his ribs. "I bet Harry will be all grown up before Sirius."

"I am not sure." Lily smiled, "Amelia might be a good influence. Anyway, you have to go back to sleep. Do you want a potion for it?"

"No, but I want to see Harry before I fall asleep again. Just to be sure you know?" James replied.

"Oh, of course." Lily smiled before she stood up, "I should have realized that. I'll be right back."

He was sure Lily tried to be fast. But he did not manage to stay awake long enough to see his son. However, the next time he woke up Lily had Harry in her lap and he happily watched the toddler chasing a toy snitch around the room before he fell asleep again after an hour or so.

The next day he woke up to see Sirius sitting next to his bed. The man's complexion was unusually pale and the look on his face was very thoughtful. James actually had to call him a few times before Sirius noticed him: "James! You're awake? How are you? I am supposed to give you two potions!"

James simply grinned while Sirius hurriedly moved around the room to find the two potions. He quickly swallowed them without complaint. They both tasted very bad, but Lily had explained to him that he needed them since his body was still not strong enough to process real food.

As soon as he finished the second one he said: "I am fine Sirius, much better than the first time I woke up." And it was true, he felt strong enough to run. But he was pretty much tied down to the bed. Next he asked: "But how are you? You look worried about something."

Sirius sighed before he brushed his fingers through his hair. Eventually he said: "That is an understatement. You heard about Edgar and Cassandra? They were buried yesterday."

James nodded: "Yeah, give Amelia my condolences. I can hardly go see her myself right now. But why does that still have you worried? Are those death eaters still attacking others?"

"No." Sirius slowly shook his head: "In fact, Mad-eye and some other aurors took them out shortly after the attack. Just a bunch of young recruits, but sadly enough there were too many of them for Edgar and Cassandra."

"Then what?" James asked, since there was clearly something else bothering Sirius.

"You know that Edgar and Cassandra had a small girl?" Sirius asked, "Susan is her name. She is only a few months older than Harry."

"I had heard about her. Never seen her though." James admitted, they had been rather isolated during the last year because of the prophecy and all that.

Sirius nodded: "Amelia took custody of her of course."

"Naturally." James agreed, he thought he started to understand Sirius' worries now.

"She told me she wanted a decent family for Susan. Not two people involved in a strange relation like ours. So she basically told me I could either shape up and ask her to marry me or bugger off."

James could not help it, he laughed at his friend's situation. He laughed even harder while he realised he barely felt his ribs anymore. Sirius just looked at him in mock anger until he calmed down enough to ask: "So, what did you say?"

"Not much." Sirius admitted, and before James could say anything he continued: "She said she wanted me to think about it for at least a day or two. Said she would do the same. She is smart like that, you know."

"Yeah, I know." James grinned, "So, how long ago was this?"

Sirius checked his watch: "Almost two full days now."

"So, what did you decide?" James wondered. He knew that Sirius had loved Amelia for a while now. But he also knew that they had broke up about six times in two years.

Sirius sighed again: "I still do not know."

"What's the problem? You love her, right?" James asked.

"Yeah! Of course I do. How could I not." Sirius immediately replied, and for a moment James was afraid he would go into his dreamy praise Amelia modus. He guessed it was fair payback for all the years that Sirius and the others had to listen to him going on about Lily. But he did not really like it. So he was glad when Sirius sobered up and said: "It's Susan."

James blinked a few times before he eloquently said: "Huh?"

"She deserves a good… well, not a father I guess. But a father like figure at the very least. And there is no way that I will be any good at that." Sirius sadly explained.

Again he blinked: "Why on earth not?"

Sirius turned towards him in surprise: "How can you even ask that. You know that my father was a drunk and that my mother still is a downright evil bitch. So how could I be any good with children."

James tried to wave Sirius' reply away before he realised he could not move his arms. Instead he replied: "That is nonsense. I've seen you with Harry. You will be a great father, maybe a bit of a crazy one… But with Amelia on your side I am sure that will turn out fine. Most important is that you love children."

"I do, don't I?" Sirius asked in confusion before he continued: "But still, how can that be enough to be a good parent?"

James wanted to shrug before he realised that also was impossible: "It is all that matters really. I am sure Lily and I will make mistakes that hurt Harry. But we can only do our best and love him."

Sirius looked at him thoughtfully: "Maybe you are right. You think I should go for it then?"

"You are the only one who can decide that. But if you really love Amelia I think you should. Otherwise you will lose her." James advised.

"Of course I love her." Sirius softly said. Then he suddenly stood up: "You think you will be okay on your own for a while?"

"I guess so." James replied, "Most likely I will fall asleep again soon anyway. Why? Where are you going?"

"To Amelia of course. I have a proposal to make." Sirius replied like it was the most natural thing in the world.

James grinned. Only Sirius would change within fifteen minutes from doubtful to absolutely sure of himself on such a subject. He decided to help his friend a bit more: "You can not just barge in and ask her. You need to do something romantic."

Sirius sat down again: "Oh… Are you sure? Amelia is rather practical."

"Of course." James replied, "She is a woman after all, right?"

"Last time I checked she was yeah." Sirius grinned.

He grimaced: "Right. Anyway, she will love it if you do something special. Beside that, I am sure she would appreciate the distraction."

"Hmm, that makes sense." Sirius nodded, "Something big… maybe I should take her to a quidditch match and let the stadium announcer make a show of it?"

James just laughed: "If that's your best idea I think you better go talk with Lily for a while."

Sirius just nodded before he jumped up and ran out of the room. James laughed for a short while longer before sleep overtook him again.

_A/N: I pushed two chapters together this time, because I figured one long chapter about James recovering in his bed would be better than two short ones;)_

_Six reviews this time, not bad for a short action filled chapter._

_My Flawed Design: I agree that it was short, but as I said… I was not really sure what else to add to that chapter. At least I saved you from two more short chapters;)_

_ILikeComps: I think Lily was not much of an expert concerning muggle explosives. At least now she knows. Only took half a house and a wounded husband to learn something:P_

_Ty Rose: I guess you are happy to see James recovering then._

_Serena Bluemoon: Nope, James just avoided becoming a horcrux due to Lily's reaction. As to who has to kill Voldemort, William thought only the 'master of death' could do it._

_Gripes: What is wrong with my answers to reviews? Anyway, I guess you could just ignore them if you do not like them;)_

_Miso Muchi: Your review has me confused;) You want me to kill them? Why? I'm not quite sure yet how many people will attend the training sessions. But it won't be too many._


	9. Uninvited guests

**Uninvited guests**

"So, once again, congratulations." James said while raising his glass to the newlywed couple. It all had gone rather fast after Sirius talked with him. A day later, he had invited Amelia for a candlelight dinner and proposed to her. And just a month later they had their wedding. It had been a rather small affair, since Amelia still was not really in the mood for a party, and Sirius did not want to invite his family anyway.

However, Sirius, with a lot of help from his best man Remus, had managed to get her into a nice two week honeymoon to sunny Egypt. They had just returned today and immediately came to Lionfire Hall. James still felt a bit upset every now and then that he had not been able to be Sirius' best man. Madam Pomfrey had only reluctantly agreed to let him leave his sickbed two days before the wedding. There had been some odd complications during his recovery, but by now he was back to full health.

"How does it feel to be Mrs. Black?" Lily asked.

Amelia smiled to Lily before she looked at her wedding ring: "Wonderful. Although I have to admit it still feels weird to be called that way." James could not help but once again list the differences between the two redheads. Amelia's hair was just a shade darker than Lily's, her face a bit fuller and her general expression much less cheerful. Although she definitely had a good sense of humour as well. She was also about a head shorter than Lily.

"I can imagine that." Lily smiled, "Normal people have a longer engagement so they can get used to the idea you know. Oh, by the way, do you want to know how many people asked me if you were pregnant when they learned of the sudden wedding?"

Amelia shrugged: "No, not really. Although I guess they were partly right since if it had not been for Susan we would most likely have waited a bit longer."

"What does Susan have to do with it?" James wondered.

"Those rulemunchers at the ministry prefer to have an orphan adopted by a married couple. And since Edgar and Cassandra did not leave a will others could have fought Amelia's claim." Sirius explained.

James nodded in understanding but Lily asked: "But why? I mean, you are her closest relative aren't you?"

"Yes, I am." Amelia nodded, "But since Susan is the official heir to the house of Bones there was a risk that some other related pureblood family would try to claim her and raise her as a ward of their own family. Just for future political gain." She shook her head sadly. "One of the many failures of our system. Anyway, I do not really think any family would have had the guts to do something like that right now. But I preferred not to take the risk."

"What Amelia means is that the ministry officials would ask ten times more money from any interested family now that they knew she was going to get married soon." James drily added.

With a grimace Amelia admitted: "That sounds about right. As I said, our government system need some serious changes. Anyway, back to more cheerful topics. How did it go with Susan? Did she cause any troubles?"

"Oh no, not at all." Lily cheerfully replied, "It was great to have her for the last few days. And I think Harry really liked having another kid around all day. If Jenny complains a bit when you go pick her up later just ignore her. She just does not want to see her go."

James laughed: "Yeah, she has been almost dancing around in happiness for the last few days." In fact, the elf had already mentioned it would be much better for Susan to stay with them when Remus first brought her over for a visit two days after the wedding. Thankfully she had been tactful enough not to say it in front of Remus, who had been terribly insecure about taking care of Susan those first few days. From the moment that she heard that Susan was going to stay here for a few days while Remus handled his 'furry little problem' the little elf had been jumping up and down with joy.

"That's good to hear." Amelia smiled, "I am looking forward to having her in my… our home."

"I am still terrified of the idea." Sirius cheerfully admitted.

Lily laughed: "Oh, come on Sirius! You are going-"

She was interrupted by a loud gong.

"What the-" Was all James managed to say before he was also interrupted when Timmy came running through a door shouting: "The outer ward is falling!"

None of them wasted any time on useless questions. Instead, they all followed Timmy in a fast run towards the spot on the inner wall where only months ago James and Lily had witnessed Voldemorts attack. Oddly enough, the situation seemed to be even more threatening this time. A small part of the outer ward, just to the right of the main gate was glowing in a bright red colour.

"Who on earth is doing that? Even Voldemort did not manage to make the wards glow red." James wondered aloud.

"There are four masked death eaters outside." Timmy replied, his voice even more squeaky then usual. "But they are using some kind of device to drain the ward."

"A ward-breaker. I have heard of these tools, they can somehow drain all magical energy from a small area and in that way disrupt any ward. Although after doing so they can not be used again. They are also illegal in Britain and very expensive." Amelia replied. "Still, I guess the death eaters do not really care about the illegal part and have found some odd sixty thousand galleons somewhere."

James blinked a few times at the high price for what seemed to be a one use only item. Then he turned to Amelia and asked: "Can you try to contact the aurors? Four death eaters should not be much of a treat, but just to be sure?"

"Of course." Amelia nodded before running back into the house towards the nearest fireplace. They had eased up on the safety measures after they destroyed Voldemorts body. But since there had been a few more death eater raids after the attack on Amelia's brother James had not yet deactivated the garden defences. Judging by the now even brighter red glow above the wall that had been a good decision.

He turned his eyes towards the garden and saw numerous statues already marching to the area behind the red glow. Soon the knight statue that commanded all the other statues was forming them up in a rough semicircle. Obviously he tried to make it look like a natural setting, but to James it was rather obvious something was wrong. But maybe that was because he knew the normal position of each statue. Or maybe the three huge catapults that were moved into firing positions behind the statue army gave it away.

"Did the commander already activate the garden pods?" James asked.

Timmy nodded, "Yes, look, here they come."

James and the others followed Timmy's finger back to the house and they saw a small army of some thirty statues running over the inner wall. The biggest of the statues was a two feet tall statue, but most of them were only a few inches tall. Still, beside the two feet tall statue they all carried what looked to be a small metal pin. "Oh, of course, they have to be manually activated." James commented.

"I wonder how they plan to get down?" Sirius wondered.

As if it had heard him suddenly one of the huge dragon statues that usually guarded the quidditch pitch came running around the corner of the wall. It ran towards the small army and raised itself on its hind legs. With some effort it put its marble head on the battlements of the inner wall and stretched its tail backwards, forming a huge but strange slide towards the grounds. The small statues did not hesitate a second and the centaur started to pick up the smaller statues two at a time and put them on the dragons head.

Soon enough all the small ones had disappeared into the grounds. The dragon patiently waited for their return. Amelia could not tear her eyes away from the dragons head while she ran back towards them. She shouted: "The floo is disconnected!"

James nodded: "Hardly surprising, but it was worth a try."

Amelia slowly turned her head between the three of them: "How come you three are so calm? I mean, there are death eaters attacking. I know all three of you were fine aurors, but still."

"And we have the best auror with us today. You should not forget about yourself." Sirius smiled and Amelia even blushed at that.

"Normally we would have been worried about fighting four death eaters with just the four of us." Lily admitted, "But to be honest I do not expect it to get to that."

Amelia frowned before her eyes shot back to the dragon again. Then she turned to the grounds and said: "Those statues… They were not much more spread out when I left you." After a few seconds she drily added: "And I did not notice those catapults. What is happening?"

"You have the honour to see the Lionfire Hall inner defences in action." James drily replied before he added: "And since you are practically part of the family now I think I do not even have to obliviate you afterwards."

"Obliviate me? Why?" Amelia sputtered in protest.

"Standard safety measure." James simply replied, "Our wards would be much less effective if our enemies knew about them. Those four death eaters will be obliviated."

"While I can see the logic in that, I can hardly allow you just to obliviate them before questioning." Amelia the auror protested.

James shrugged: "Sorry, but I do not believe the ministry will give me another opportunity. So they either leave from here without their memories of today or without their lives. Whatever you want."

Timmy fanatically nodded in agreement, but Amelia spluttered a bit in protest while the bright red glow turned into black. It was only a matter of minutes now. Sirius tried to comfort his wife: "He is right love. They will come back to Lionfire Hall eventually. And it would be a shame if they knew about the defences by then."

"How do you know they will be back?" Amelia wondered, "I mean, if those defences are as formidable as they seem they will most likely aim for easier targets next time. If they remembered them that is."

"That is actually a reason to make them forget, don't you agree?" Lily asked, "Better that they waste their energy on a well protected house then attack defenceless muggleborn homes or so."

James just shot Amelia a worried look. It had been a good question, which reminded him that Amelia was well known for her sharp brain. He wondered if they should inform her about the prophecy and all that. But this was hardly the time, so instead he looked at the dragon statue and saw that most of the small statues had already climbed its back towards the inner wall.

As soon as the last one was pulled over the battlements by the centaur the dragon reared back from the wall and started to run back towards it original hiding spot. The other dragon was already well hidden on the other side of the house. Together they would storm any attacker that managed to get through the smaller statues. Although to be quite honest James had no illusion about four death eaters managing to get that far. It would have been a far different story if Voldemort had entered. Or if they had brought a small army instead of only four.

The dragon suddenly froze in a rather unnatural position at the same moment that Timmy said: "The outer ward is pierced."

Sure enough, the glow had disappeared and four black robed figures flew their broomsticks through the hole that it left in the ward. They landed just in front of the outer wall when they saw James and the others standing on the inner wall. Apparently, they did not want to fight from the air. They moved forward some forty feet until suddenly all statues drew their weapons or readied there fists, claws or teeth.

The four death eaters hesitated until the front figure cursed a stone dog into oblivion with a well placed reducto. It was as if this had been the signal the defenders had been waiting for. All statues charged towards the four death eaters. At the same time all garden pods surrounding the area began firing their minor hexes. The spells were hardly dangerous, but over thirty stunners, trip jinxes and tickling charms coming in from all directions would confuse anyone. Some of the statues had actually attached one or two of the small garden pods to their shoulders, which made Lily compare them to some muggle movie.

Two more statues were reduced to mere rubble. Poor Timmy would have an awful amount of work to repair them. But then the four death eaters were simply overran by the vast number of statues and garden pods. After two minutes four of the larger manlike statues started to march towards them, each of them clutching one of the death eaters to their torso. A fifth, smaller, statue followed them with their wands. All of the five statues had some large black burn marks were curses had hit them. Apparently the four death eaters had fought fanatically. Actually, two of them were still struggling to get free. Of course, it was rather useless to try and physically overpower a stone statue. But they tried none the less.

"How is the ward doing Timmy?" James asked.

"It is almost closed again." The elf replied, his voice still squeaky but much more like his normal voice now. "In two minutes or so it will be whole again. Although it might take a day or two to get it back to its old level."

"I see." James nodded, "Keep an eye on it while we go see our new guests okay?"

The elf squared his shoulders in agreement and while Amelia kept muttering about what just happened they moved downstairs to where the five statues were waiting for them. Once there Sirius immediately asked: "Amelia, would you terribly mind if I accidently broke their wands before we start questioning them?"

Amelia softly laughed: "Yes, we may be able to gather some evidence from those wands. Maybe that statue can bring them inside the manor? Just to be sure?"

The wand carrying statue, a fisherman, turned its head to James. When he nodded the statue marched on towards the manor.

All four of them still had their wands aimed on the death eaters. Eventually James asked: "Sirius? Can you remove their masks?"

His friend only nodded and walked towards the first death eater. The only female in the group. "Ladies first." He commented while pulling her mask away. Immediately Bellatrix Lestrange spat at him, but he simply dodged it. "Bellatrix! What a pleasant surprise! I would have invited you for our wedding. That is, if you had not turned into an evil deranged psycho." He pleasantly told her.

She only sneered: "Like I wanted to come!"

"Tut, tut, how impolite. I am sure you were raised better than that." Sirius calmly replied before he ignored her and moved on. It was hardly surprising that the next two were the male Lestranges. But the last one was a huge surprise, although Amelia was the only one to immediately recognise him: "Barty Crouch?"

"Barty Crouch?" Sirius asked, "As in, the son of our former boss?"

"The one and only." Barty jr. smugly replied, "Surprising, isn't it?"

"A bit." Sirius admitted.

James did not really care, although he guessed it would have far reaching impact on the political landscape. After all, Barty sr. was the most likely candidate to become the next minister. This little drawback might ruin that though. Still, he personally could care less about who would be the next minister. So instead he asked: "Why did you four come here today?"

He expected it would take some effort to receive an answer. But to his surprise Bellatrix immediately started shouting: "Because you know where the dark lord is! We have to find him!"

"Well, just so you know, we have not got a clue where he might be." James answered with a grin to hide his surprise at the question. He had been sure it was some kind of revenge raid. Then he turned serious: "How do you know that he survived anyway?"

But neither Bellatrix, nor one of the other three death eaters wanted to answer to that. After a while Amelia suggested: "I believe it would be easier to use veritaserum on the ministry. I will be sure to ask this question."

"Yeah, I agree." James nodded, "Lily, if you would do the honours?" She was much better with memory charms than him after all.

As soon as she stepped forward Amelia wanted to object again, but Sirius stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him questioningly while Lily stunned the four death eaters before she started with her oblivations. In the end Amelia simply said: "You better explain to me how you can be sure that they will want to return here after they were taken down so easily."

James and Sirius exchanged a worried look. Of course, Amelia did not miss it and her expression became even more hawk like. Eventually Sirius said: "It is your decision. Well, yours and Lily's of course."

"What is?" Lily wondered, obviously she had already finished obliviating the four death eaters.

"If we give Amelia some background information." James replied, judging by the expression on Amelia's face by now they would either have to tell her more or obliviate her as well. And for obvious reasons he would rather not obliviate his best friends wife.

It was Lily who first spoke again: "I think we should tell her. Although I would appreciate a magical oath to keep it secret. Nothing personal Amelia, it is just that this is very important for us and we do not know you that well."

Amelia visibly doubted about what to do. But once again Sirius interfered: "You can trust us Amelia. I swear that we are not doing anything against law or the ministry. But just as Lily says, it is very important that nothing of what we are doing gets out."

Eventually Amelia reluctantly gave an oath that would prevent her from sharing any of the information that she would learn that day. After a long explanation the first thing Amelia drily commented was: "I felt happy that you left the aurors Sirius. Because my dad always used to say it was bad luck if both people in a relationship were in the force. But now I feel your new 'job' might be just as dangerous." Then she nodded and said: "I can see why you wanted an oath Lily. If there is anything I can do to help, just let me know."

"We will." Lily smiled, obviously happy with Amelia's reply. But James could not help but feel worried. He never thought they would have to explain their actions to an outsider within a few months. And he could not help but wonder what it did say about other possible unexpected surprises.

_A/N: Bit of a time jump there. But I had to get Bella and her friends out of the way. It made sense to me that in the new timeline they would rather try and attack the Potters instead of the Longbottoms. After all, they would be the most likely suspects of knowing more about Voldemorts fate. Beside that, it let me play with the defences of Lionfire Hall, hope I did not make them too strong. Guess we will have to wait for a real attack to judge that…_

_I was tempted to try and write a chapter about Sirius' wedding. Some nice room for comedy there;) But in the end I figured it would be better to get this story moving a bit. Next chapter will see an even bigger jump through time._

_On a side note, I hope you guys like 'my' Amelia. I figured she could be a bit less strict than in canon since she is a lot younger and got married, which will hopefully manage to keep her a bit more focused on life outside the office. _

_An amazing seventeen reviews this time :D_

_Serena Bluemoon: According to William Voldemort actually marked Harry as an equal when he decided to attack him. I guess I can not yet give too much away about what will happen in the end, I mean, that would not be fun right?:)_

_Katzztar: Well, since he already went on a honeymoon with Amelia I think it turned out alright. I just hope he won't be too much of a bad influence on Susan, she is rather quiet in canon I think._

_Alaskanking: I agree with you on the long chapters, but I am sure there will be some more short chapters which just won't fit with the chapter before or after… Blame it on my writing skills :D_

_Acrazysmile: No, James just avoided that fate when Lily used her new family portkey. Then she summoned Dumbledore who dealt with the floating part of Voldemorts soul. Well, Fawkes did in fact. _

_Dogsby: I think wards can be compared to locks and other anti-theft measures in our world. Sure, you try and protect your home, but if someone really wants to get in they will find a way to overcome those obstacles. I mean, in the books there are a few times that even the Gringotts and Hogwarts defences get bypassed, so what chance does a normal house have?_

_Teufel1987: You sound a bit Hermione-ish there (yes, I know that is not a word either) ;) But you are right on both counts of course, just edited them. Strange that my text processors spelling and grammar check did not pick up 'hurted'. And strange that there are English verbs that do not change when put into the past, but that's most likely just because I'm more used to Dutch grammar. As far as my google skills work out I have to say that this is the only one I would usually miss though. I mean, 'letted' and 'costed' would hurt even my English feelings;)_

_My flawed design: Hope you do not mind too much that I pretty much skipped the wedding and the proposal. Although I could hardly have James witnessing the proposal I guess:)_

_Happylady: Already jumped a few months this chapter. But soon the jumps will be more like a couple of years at a time yeah. I plan to describe only a few events during the next ten years or so. Knowing me, it will most likely turn out longer than I expect. But at least there will be no day by day chapters for a while;)_

_Mwinter1: Well, here it is. Hope you liked it!_

_Fudge: You are not the only one it seems:D_

_Deanine: I used to do that. Use the reply to review button I mean. But I gave up when I started to get mails from people who wondered what I replied to certain reviews;) _

_ILikeComps: Yeah, it was. But Lily was just in time with her portkey. I'll try to keep Sirius acting odd every now and then._

_Silverwolf: I guess I could have copied your review as a reply to Happylady's review. So yep, that is pretty much my plan until we reach Hogwarts._

_RRW: Good to hear!_

_Man of Faith: I am trying not to give too much away of the ending, but I have to admit that I wonder if Harry's 'power of love' is any less because his mother survived? Although I guess taking down Quirrel with only his hands might be difficult now. But if Lily's sacrifice was the deciding factor for the eventual victory then Harry would not really be the 'chosen one', more the 'blessed one' or so :P_

_I am not quite sure about the pairings yet. Depends a bit on how Harry and some of the girls develop in this alternative timeline I guess. Just a small example: why would Ginny still have a crush now that Harry did not personally defeat Voldemort as a baby? _

_Crazyjim87: For your first question I guess I just point upwards;) As for the hallows, I guess he will get the cloak when he goes to Hogwarts. No reason why not, but they still have to find the stone. And he will have to actually defeat Dumbledore before getting the wand, so that might take a while… So the only answer I can give is 'not anytime soon';)_

_Sarah-rose76646: Whoa, that's a long review. Let's focus on the positive part first. Glad to hear my story manages to keep people awake until 2 am :D I guess I am hardly the right person to call my own story 'interesting, unique, or spell-binding', but let me assure you at least that a gang of super-wiz-kids is not what is going to happen;) _

_As to falling back to the 'reading HP book's summary and do over' story. I felt I had two options with a seer. I could go with a few cryptic remarks like 'don't trust the rat' or such and go from there, or let him describe a not quite accurate version of canon and see how it would influence the story. An accurate version would have been rather useless since in that case they should have just received the books somehow;) I picked the second version because I thought it would give me more options for this story. _

_Anyway, cheers for making the effort for such a long review after feeling disappointed about a story. And although I feel there was nothing wrong with your review I appreciate it that you did not chose for the anonymous route._


	10. Visiting the headmaster

**Visiting the headmaster**

James, Lily and Remus arrived in front of the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. While Lily vanished the piece of rope that they had used as a portkey Remus and James quickly looked around for any potential danger. But the streets seemed to be deserted. Of course, it was still rather cold here in Scotland, although it was officially spring by now.

They were a bit late for their appointment with the headmaster, and so they immediately started walking towards Hogwarts. Only two days ago Dumbledore had sent them an invite, apparently he wanted to talk about Voldemort's horcruxes. In the last two years Remus had practically lived in Lionfire Hall, more specifically in the library room. In fact… a month ago he had simply sold his old apartment after he realised he had not been there for over two months straight.

And so the three of them had came to Hogsmeade together. The Longbottoms and Blacks should already be there by now. Earlier today they had brought Neville and Susan to Lionfire Hall. Death eater activity had dropped down to almost nothing after they had delivered the Lestrange family and Crouch junior to the ministry, but still they chose to gather all the children at Lionfire Hall on days like today. They all knew that Timmy, Jenny and most importantly the wards would keep them safe enough while their parents were out.

They hurried to the chill spring temperature and soon enough found themselves in front of the gargoyle that guarded the headmasters office. Classes were still in session, so there were no students that could overhear James muttering: 'Acid pops.' to the statue.

Inside they immediately noticed that the usually small office had somehow grown enough to house a long table with four chairs on each side and one on the head. Obviously, Albus himself was sitting on the last chair. The Longbottoms were on the left side and Sirius was on the right. A quick glance through the office showed that Albus' normal desk, Fawkes and his perch and the tables filled with all kinds of magical instruments were moved to one of the side walls. But there was no sign of Amelia.

And so after a few quick greetings James first question was: 'Sirius? Where is Amelia?'

Sirius waved impatiently: "She did not want to leave the ministry. Lucius Malfoy is trying to get cosy with minister Bagnold again. And although she seems to distrust him just as much as we do Amelia felt she had to be there."

James nodded. Recently Amelia had been promoted to be one of the minister's bodyguards. A position that was often seen as a fast track to a position as head auror or even head of the department of magical law enforcement, DMLE for short. Even two years ago, when Crouch Sr. was 'promoted' from the DMLE to a much less prestigious department after his son was revealed as a death eater her name had already been mentioned for both of the top jobs. But in the end some people considered her too young, so instead of her two more experienced men were chosen. Both were not that far away from retirement though, and sometimes Amelia was already thinking about possible reforms she could start if she got one of the positions.

He still remembered how furious she had been when Lucius Malfoy and several other rich purebloods had been cleared of all charges after Voldemort's death. Everybody knew they had not been imperiused, but galleons were a justice on their own. James and the others had decided to pretty much ignore the ministry after that, instead they decided to focus on their own plans. But Amelia still wanted to change the corrupt ministry to a better organisation. He had to admit that it was a worthy goal, although he sometimes doubted if it was realistic.

Still, today the ministry was not the main subject. And Albus got everybody's attention by saying: 'I believe I finally know enough about horcruxes to make some educated guesses about what Voldemort can do.'

When he did not immediately continue Frank was the first to say: 'That is good news I guess?'

'In a way.' Albus slowly replied, 'It does not really bring us any closer to actually finding and destroying them. But that will be my next avenue of research.'

'We know Albus.' Lily smiled, 'But I admit that I am curious to learn more about those horcruxes first. To me, they still do not make much sense.'

James and Sirius both nodded impatiently. In the last two years both had mentioned a few times that they did not understand why it took so long to research some magical artefacts. But apparently there was not much literature about them. Beside that, it was not like the headmaster had nothing else to do. Albus abruptly started talking again: 'Yes, I will ignore the part about the creation of horcruxes. I am sure none of you ever wants to make one. And even if you do I will not be the one to tell you about them. Let me just say that murder is only the first step. And not even the most evil step at that.'

They all looked at each other, somewhat wondering about what other acts would be even more evil than murder. But nobody asked about it and the headmaster continued: 'I am afraid that there are no material requirements to the creation of a horcrux. Which obviously makes our quest much more difficult."

'Huh?' Sirius eloquently asked.

Albus chuckled: 'What I mean to say is that almost everything can be turned into a horcrux. Coins, artefacts or just random pieces of clothing. Even living beings have in the past been used as horcruxes, although obviously it is not that effective. After all, if the carrier dies from old age or sickness the horcrux will fade as well. Only creatures or items filled with light magic, like Fawkes over here for example, can never be used as horcruxes. Looking back to that Halloween I believe that green cloud was trying to turn you into a horcrux James.'

Next to him both Lily and Remus gasped. James just looked surprised, he realised that he had not read enough about the horcruxes to realise the full danger. So he just said: 'Well, that makes me twice as happy that my wonderful wife got me out of there in time.'

'Same here.' Lily eagerly agreed.

'Definitely.' Alice agreed as well, 'I take it the problem you mentioned is that there is no way to narrow down the search for horcruxes now?'

Albus slowly nodded: 'It would have been much easier if a horcrux could only be made out of a certain material. I believe that right now I will have to find out what kind of items lord Voldemort would choose to use as horcruxes. It is too early to say anything, but I already have some vague ideas.'

James was not the only one that wanted to complain about the headmaster's vague reply. But they had all learned that it would not help anyway, so he just asked: 'So all you discovered is that you have to start researching something else?' As soon as he said it he realised that it sounded rather impatient, apparently Lily thought the same for she forcibly kicked against his leg.

Albus just smiled, if it was in reaction to James' words or his pained expression was a bit unclear: 'Well, there is a bit more. I learned that right now Voldemort should be floating around as a kind of a wraith. There are basically two ways that he can use to return to a corporeal body. Actually, there are three, but since Nicolas destroyed his philosophers stone there are only two reasonable options left.'

'He actually did destroy the stone?' Frank asked. Most of them were still surprised at the idea that someone would willingly destroy such a wondrous item. But the headmaster seemed to think it was perfectly normal. Of course, the man thought that the bright purple robes he was wearing right now were perfectly normal as well, but still…

'Yes, he did. He and his wife are now slowly aging and will eventually move on to the next adventure. Anyway, as I said, this leaves only two options for the dark lord. The easiest way would be to sacrifice one of his horcruxes. With a rather simple ritual the horcrux would disappear and the dark lord would be back in the flesh so to speak.' Albus explained.

'So even if we can not find the horcruxes he would eventually die if we destroy his body often enough?' Lily wondered.

Albus hesitated: 'In theory yes. I believe that even Voldemort can not make an unlimited number of new horcruxes. However, there is another way for him to return. It involves a much more complex ritual that includes a very complex potion and some special ingredients, but I believe the dark lord will try this at first since it would not require him to sacrifice one of his precious horcruxes. I admit that I was unable to discover what exactly those three special ingredients might be, although I learned about one of them. I believe you still do not want me to discuss this with professor Snape? He might be able to name the other two ingredients.'

Lily and the marauders exchanged a silent communication. Although Lily and Albus had always said that they trusted Snape there was still a bit too much history between the three marauders and Snape. Beside that, James simply did not trust people who knew that much about the dark arts. Frank and Alice had also argued that they preferred to keep the prophecy and everything that was involved with it on a 'need-to-know' basis. Eventually Lily said: 'We still want to keep Severus out of this. However, if you can breach the subject in some way without mentioning the prophecy, William or any of us it is fine with me.'

They all nodded, some more reluctantly than others. Albus thoughtfully frowned a few seconds before he continued: 'There might be a way… some of my connections recently informed me about a dark spirit roaming through the forests of Albania… I meant to discuss it with Severus. Anyway, the one ingredient I did discover that is involved in the ritual is blood from an enemy.'

'That should be easy enough for him to find. He made more than enough enemies.' Sirius concluded. But on James' other side Lily turned very pale: 'Please tell me that does not mean Harry!'

All heads snapped back to the headmaster, who looked very serious now: 'In theory Sirius might be right. But I am afraid that if Voldemort puts enough stock in the prophecy to try and attack Harry he will want to use his blood for this ritual as well.'

James was the first to reply: 'It does not really change anything. We already knew that we should protect Harry from Voldemort, this just gives us another reason.'

'Yes, of course.' Albus nodded in agreement, 'However, I was hoping you would not spread too much details about those protections.'

'Why not?' Lily asked, 'There is no way that I will allow that madman to get to Harry.'

'Oh, I fully agree that Harry should be protected at all costs.' Albus quickly agreed again when faced with Lily's fierce expression. 'However, I do hope that Voldemort will wait for Harry to enter Hogwarts. He might think he has a chance to get him inside the halls of this school, so instead of sacrificing a horcrux he will wait. Or at least, I hope so. Obviously, if everything works out alright he will soon find out that he does not stand a chance of getting Harry out of this school. And then he will have to sacrifice a horcrux. But it will give us much needed time. I only ask you not to spread any stories about how you will make sure that Harry has extra protection even in Hogwarts.'

James and Lily looked at each other before James slowly nodded: 'I do not see any problem with that. So that would mean Voldemort will rise again during Harry's first year? I mean, as soon as he discovers that he can not get to Harry he will most likely just go and get one of his horcruxes.'

'That is a possibility at least, although I am not sure how he will get the horcruxes while he is only a wraith. After all, I guess they will be well protected.' The headmaster agreed, 'Beside that, I have some ideas about how we might distract him a bit longer.'

Of course, he did not care to explain those ideas. After a short silence Alice asked: 'So what are you going to do now?'

'My plan is to talk with people who know Voldemort, or more specifically Tom Riddle.' Albus replied, 'I hope that I will be able to learn enough about the man to deduct what items he would prefer as horcruxes.'

James tried to understand how the headmaster wanted to do that. But he had to admit to himself that he had no idea. So eventually he just said: 'I wish you good luck with that. I guess that in the meantime we will keep doing our own duties.'

'Yes, of course.' Albus nodded, 'How is that progressing anyway?'

James grinned: 'Maybe you should come and see for yourself sometime.'

'Maybe I will. I have to admit I am curious to see what kind of progress you achieved.' Albus replied cheerfully.

_A/N: So, the first big jump in time. A little more than two years have passed between last chapter and this one, and things are slowly developing both inside the ministry and around James and the others. I hope you like how I offered Voldemort a few options to restore himself to a body. I could not really find anything about how horcruxes allow someone to do it, but I figured there had to be a way. They would be a bit useless otherwise._

_Another 16 reviews. I should hire a secretary or so…_

_Katzztar: Yeah, although as you can see Amelia is still rather fanatic about her job;) But still, one of the best parts of writing up an alternative timeline like this is the way characters are altered through the different events._

_Stonegnome: Thanks for all your reviews. I figured I'd reply to all of them at once. I am going to work in your considerations, always nice when people think along:) And I have to admit I was intrigued by your reply to chapter three. About if Voldemort was one of the orphans saved by Kevan and how it might be a reason for the killing curse malfunctioning. It was not the angle I was working on, but it could be an interesting idea for another fanfic sometime. Although there is the minor problem that the killing curse did work on James and Lily in canon. As to your last review, those breachers are very rare and expensive. So Voldemort simply did not have one in his pocket when he first attacked. Most likely it took him a few days to actually get one._

_Anon: Still, story wise it should at least be possible for Lionfire Hall to be attacked;) But of course, four silly death eaters were never a serious treat._

_I-Angel92: So, where the 190 minutes enough?;) Thanks for reviewing and good luck for if you start that Harry Potter fanfic!_

_Mohan143: Sadly he managed to buy his way out of prison again. Still, there is time enough to get him what he deserves;)_

_Ty rose: I guess it would be confusing if you missed a chapter yeah:) And as I said before, it is very nice to play around with the characters like this. James and Lily are of course pretty much open characters since they never were around much in canon. But Amelia, Sirius and the kids are interesting to work with. I mean, they have to be different from canon since some major events turned out differently, but I still want their canon qualities to shine through. _

_Autumngold: The ward breaker was a one time use item, so it is not really worth keeping anymore. I never thought about if they earned anything for the defeat of Voldemort (I assume you mean him;)) and his top minions. I guess it makes sense, but let's just assume that James never really cared about the reward since the Potters are rich anyway:P_

_ILikeComps: Yeah, in canon he never really grew up. Mostly because after his youth he spend most of his time in Azkaban. Now that he avoids that and has a child and wife he might turn out different. Although I can hardly imagine him without his antics every now and then._

_Serena Bluemoon: It might have been a bit rushed yeah. But since she is Sirius' wife now she will be around quite a lot. She already noticed something was going on. And since she is a rather sharp auror she is bound to find out more, this way they made sure she would work with them instead of worrying about their plans and reaching wrong conclusions._

_RRW: Yeah, Neville and his parents really were lucky that time. As for Hermione… give it a couple chapters:)_

_Dogsby: Oh, I did not mean my last reply to you as some universal truth about wards. I just wanted to explain my vision about wards and how I will use them in this story. I guess some kind of invincible ward scheme could be fun, but there won't be any in my story (near invincible is a totally different thing:D). Also, I think my characters would try to kidnap me if they read this. Lily would just force me to make the ward invincible ;) _


	11. Fighting for cake

**Fighting for cake**

With a quick tumbling manoeuvre James managed to dive under two angry green spells that flew his way. A fast run brought him to the relative safety of a small group of big trees.

He leaned his back against one of the biggest trees while gasping for breath. They had been fighting for over two hours now. It was about time that he found a way to take out at least some of his opponents. But that was easier said then done.

Suddenly he heard a soft noise from above him. Looking up he saw the fierce yellow eyes of a black jaguar staring at him from the next tree. The big predator was obviously preparing to jump at him, so he did not hesitate a moment but shot a silent stunner at it. The big creature tried to dodge the red light, but from this distance James could hardly miss it. And a few seconds later the black jaguar crashed into the ground below the tree, after which it immediately faded from view. Just when James realised that this meant that the attacker that conjured the creature was looking at him a barrage of spells came flying at him from his left. With a soft curse he managed to hide behind the trunk of the tree that he had just been resting again. Small splinters of wood flew past him with every spell that struck the poor defenceless tree.

James did not wait to see how long the tree would survive. Instead he apparated some fifty feet to his left to hide behind another tree, it was a good thing that the anti-apparation ward only prevented him from altogether leaving the area. This was the third time today that he had evaded an opponent by simply apparating inside the warded area.

After a quick disillusionment charm he carefully sneaked to a position from where he could see the origin of the bombardment of spells that was still raining down on his last hiding spot. It turned out that his opponent had also chosen a disillusionment charm, so he only saw a vague blur shooting green, red and blue spells.

Carefully he aimed for the origin of the spells and then silently shot down a wide rain of stunning spells. Apparently his target was surprised, he only managed to dodge a few of them before one of the spells slammed into him. Immediately there was a soft blue glow while his target was pulled away to safety.

He allowed himself a small break while he wondered who he had just stunned. Judging by the black jaguar it was either Frank or Lily. They were the ones that most often sent conjured animals around to do their bidding. The others preferred a more direct fighting style, although James often conjured a few animated statues to help himself in a duel.

Suddenly a huge weight slammed into his back and he crashed into the ground. His wand shot out of his hand. He tried to ignore the large black paws that pushed down on his arms and wandlessly summon his wand back to him. But it only twitched into his direction for a second before it suddenly flew away from him. Looking up he saw Lily easily catching it with an evil grin on her face. He tried to reach for his second wand that was well hidden in an extra wand holder around his waist. But the creature on top of him did not give him any reach. Lily just smirked and said: 'Goodbye James.' Before shooting a stunner into him.

A few seconds later he woke up in the large spectator room where several others were already watching the 'screens' as Lily had called them when she created this room. The screens were large rectangular devices, each showed one of the remaining combatants.

'James!' Sirius shouted, 'So nice of you to join us. Of course, you had to take me out first. But I'll forgive you if I can have another piece of cake at Harry's party.'

James just grinned: 'So you were the one trying to kill my tree?' Sirius nodded, his eyes barely leaving the screen. James first looked around the room and saw that Frank and Remus were already there as well. Amelia, who had not been participating in the fight was discussing something with them.

James softly whistled: 'So, Lily and Alice huh? That never happened before I think.'

Sirius laughed: 'No, should be interesting. They are almost at the spot now.'

Every time when only two combatants were left in one of their simulation fights a gong would sound through the area and the two remaining fighters would move to the central area for a more formal kind of duel to decide the winner. That way, the others would not have to wait too long for the conclusion of the fight.

Of course, they had started the fight some two hours ago. So, if any of the others had quickly been taken out the wait would still have been long. Although whoever was the first out today was lucky to have Amelia waiting for him. Normally you would just be on your own watching the screens. James always hated it, so he tried not be the first to go.

By now Lily had reached the central area, accompanied by four large black jaguars. Only a few moments later Alice entered the area from the other side. The two women quickly bowed at each other. Then, without any further comment they started to rain down spells on each other. Lily's four jaguars also stormed forward, but Alice shot each of them down before they were even halfway to her. It barely slowed her attack on Lily. But still, his wife had used the very minor delay in her opponent's spell casting to levitate a huge piece of stone and throw it towards Alice. With a fierce jab of her wand Alice turned the stone into rubble, but she still had to dodge some of the fragments. Lily never let go of the initiative and kept shooting all kind of spells at Alice, who so far managed to dodge and shield against all of them.

'I wonder how long Lily can keep this up.' Remus commented from next to James. Looking up he saw that Frank and Amelia were also watching the screens now.

With a shrug he replied: 'Normally, I would say; a long time. But after such a long fight? No clue.'

'She got me as well with one those jaguars.' Frank admitted before he cheered when Alice suddenly managed to shoot a few spells at Lily. Only a few seconds later Lily grabbed back the initiative with a flock of small angry birds that moved straight for Alice's eyes. The other woman needed all her attention to burn them down with a conjured wall of fire and was back to dodging and shielding after that.

James had to admire the spellwork. The last time he and Sirius had been the last two survivors and they had simply rained down curses on each other. Both the magical kind as some immature shouts. 'So, what happened to you Remus?'

'Alice got me. She brought some venamous tentacoulas into the fight. They distracted me long enough for her to hit me with a fake killer.' Remus replied. James nodded, somehow Remus werewolf blood made him resistant against stunners. The first one would only slow him down. And so Alice had simply decided to use a fake killing curse. Lily had invented the spell, it would only create a small green bolt that closely resembled an actual killing curse. It was totally harmless, but the idea was that they trained in avoiding it.

Back on the screen Lily had slowed down a bit. And now the two witches were taking turns at shooting at each other. It looked like it would go on like this for a while. But then suddenly a large lioness ran out of the woods from behind Lily and charged into her back. Lily never saw it coming and soon was in a position that resembled James' earlier situation. Although this time it was Alice who had a free shot at stunning her.

Seconds later the two witches also arrived in the room. Frank was the first to say: 'Well done Alice!'

They all agreed and Alice smiled: 'Thanks. It was about time that I won a fight again.'

'How did you manage to conjure that lion?' Lily wanted to know.

'Oh, I already conjured it before I even entered the area. I just told it to slowly circle around and attack you from behind.' Alice proudly smiled.

'I see.' Lily admitted, 'Judging by the way you took out my jaguars I should have done something similar.'

'Maybe.' Alice agreed, 'I am still surprised by the amounts of spells you fired even when controlling four of those beasts. You are so powerful.'

Lily wanted to protest but Amelia was faster: 'You all are. I wish you would reconsider and join the aurors again. We could use people like you on the force.' Remus snorted and she continued: 'Even you Remus. You know I would not turn you down.'

Things had changed since Amelia had taken over as head auror a few months ago, so Remus nodded: 'I know Amelia. But I can not be bothered to face the reactions again. I enjoy myself here at Lionfire Hall. And I am learning a lot.'

'So are we all.' James smiled, before he decided to turn the conservation to more important things. There was a birthday to celebrate today after all. 'Anyway, Sirius wanted another piece of Harry's birthday cake. So let's see go and see if the kids left us anything.'

'Hey! I won, so I should have another piece first.' Alice protested. Sirius just laughed, turned into his animagus form and ran for it. Alice looked surprised for a second before she sprinted after him. All others chuckled softly before they followed a bit slower.

Of course, there was no reason to hurry. The elves had made a huge cake for Harry's fourth birthday. And beside that, the kids had been way too busy to eat it while their parents were practising. Lily had finally allowed James to buy a kids practise broom for Harry. Yesterday, Neville had also received one for his birthday. And a couple months ago Susan had got one as well from Sirius. Now the three kids were happily zooming a few feet above the quidditch pitch. Jenny was keeping a watchful eye on them.

James and Lily stopped walking a short distance away from the pitch. And while their friends moved on they hugged each other. James whispered: 'He is going to be a great quidditch player Lily. Look at him go.'

Lily smiled: 'That is the sixth time you said that. And we only saw him fly for some thirty minutes before we went to train.'

'So? It is still true.' James grinned proudly.

Lily just smiled again before she suddenly turned serious: 'I am so happy we changed our plans a bit.'

'Me too.' James nodded. Their original plan had been to start Harry's training as soon as possible. But seeing the kid hovering and laughing above the quidditch field he realised how foolish that would have been. Harry needed to grow up in a normal way. Or at least, as normal as possible with a godfather like Sirius, who was right now wolfing down a few pieces of birthday cake in his dog form. He would still receive training before going to Hogwarts, but they were planning to make it as much fun as possible. And they would allow Harry to choose his own pace instead of trying to push all kind of stuff at him. Although Lily and Remus were already working on ways to make learning as fun as possible. James and Sirius had decided that their main job was to get Harry and the others ready for quidditch. That was a good training as well after all. Or at least that is what they told themselves.

Beside that, Albus had argued that they should not tell Harry the prophecy before he came of age. They had both immediately shot down that idea. But in the end they had agreed it would be best not to inform him from the start. Instead, they would try to find an innocent looking reason to get Harry's training started and tell him about the prophecy when he was a bit older. They still planned to do so before he went to Hogwarts though.

'It makes much more sense this way.' Lily smiled, 'Harry can be a happy kid for as long as possible. And we will be ready to protect him.'

Again James nodded. They had decided to give Harry and the others a bit of space to enjoy their childhood. But they had been a lot stricter for themselves. All six of them trained several hours each day. And then next to that they also spent time researching and preparing for the future. There were weeks that James and Lily barely left Lionfire Hall.

Not that it really mattered. After the destruction of Voldemorts body the wizarding community had decided that the Potters were heroes. So every time they went to Diagon Alley or so there would be people wanting to shake hands and things like that. James had to admit that he had enjoyed it at first, but it quickly grew boring. Especially because he did not feel he earned their praise. They had won by using a nice muggle trick, not by any heroic actions of him or Lily. But of course almost no one knew about the land mines, so they just imagined all kind of heroic spell fights.

He smiled while remembering Lily's and Alice's duel from a few minutes ago. The next time the six of them had to fight some people would be surprised. Although he had to admit the idea of attacking Voldemort himself still seemed insane.

His musings were interrupted when a high voice shouted: 'Daddy! Mummy! Look what I can do!'

They both smiled at each other before walking closer to the pitch where their son was now doing something of a diving manoeuvre. Tomorrow, there would be time to train and worry. Today, they had to celebrate their sons fourth birthday. Today, life was good.

_A/N: And we're moving even faster this time. I think the birthday cake was really good, but when I wanted to try it myself Sirius attacked me:/_

_Eight reviews this time:_

_Teufel1987: I guess he'll need some more time to figure it out. After all, in canon it also took him several years to find the first horcrux after he learned about the diary. Beside that, for the actual horcruxes he still needs the memories from that ministry guy who went to the Gaunts and the house elf_

_My Flawed Design: Good to hear:) And although both of them were in this chapter I guess there was not too much romance involved. I'll see what I can do for you;)_

_ILikeComps: Yeah, I think he is wasting too much time on his other tasks to be an efficient leader in the fight against Voldemort. _

_Bookivore: I think pieces of paper would have ruined Sirius little trick. After all, he wanted the death eaters to think he was the secret keeper so they would let Peter alone. _

_MAFITA: Good to hear, hope you'll enjoy this new chapter as well:D_

_Happylady: I think it is more his usual tendency not to spread knowledge while it is not absolutely necessary. _

_Jayley: Yeah, it is going to be interesting to see how those mistakes will change things. Or at least, I hope it will be interesting to see;)_


	12. Junior school

**Junior school**

James and Lily were quietly chatting in the living room when the fireplace roared to life and Alice's head appeared. She looked around and when she saw the two of them she asked: 'Hey Lily, James, I was wondering how Harry is doing?'

Lily smiled: 'Oh, much better already. It was only a light infection. And we noticed and treated it fast enough to prevent any scars.' Harry had somehow gotten dragon pox just after his seventh birthday, but he was almost fully recovered by now. 'The only problem is that his skin will look a bit greenish for a while, so I guess we will have to keep him home for a bit longer. I have no idea how to explain it.'

'You're still going through with that then?' Alice wondered.

'Yes, of course. Why should we not?' Lily asked in surprise. But James understood well enough. It was pretty much unheard of that a pureblood kid was sent to muggle school. So to the Longbottoms any excuse not to send their kid to a muggle school would be fine. And although Frank and Alice understood that they wanted to bring Harry in contact with Hermione before Hogwarts they thought sending him to the same school was a bit too much. Instead, they had suggested simply contacting Hermione's family. They were sure that if they were told about magic and Hogwarts the girl would love to visit Lionfire Hall a few times. Still, Lily had decided that it would be good for Harry to get a bit of a muggle background as well. And as soon as James saw the determined look in her eyes he knew it would be useless to argue anyway. Beside that, it would have been difficult to follow Frank and Alice's plan without violating the statute of secrecy.

However, Lily had wanted to keep Harry at home for the first few official school years. According to her it would give them time to prepare Harry a bit on how to act in the muggle world. And she was sure they could home school him well enough to get him ready for junior school.

So far, Harry had proven to be a bright and enthusiastic pupil. But now he had already missed his first two weeks of official school while recovering from dragon pox. Lily had immediately contacted the teacher of his new class and he had provided her with some homework exercises which Harry easily solved.

A few days later –

There was a soft but cold rain steadily falling down, and where James would normally have used a simple water repellent charm now he had to make do with an umbrella. He was carefully angling it so both Lily and he would stay dry while they walked to the group of parents at the edge of the schoolyard. Every few seconds he had to correct himself a bit and he wondered how the muggles made it look so easy. Somehow, small drops seemed to keep hitting James or Lily, although most of them below the waist. He tried to work out if there was a way to extend the umbrella, but he could not find it. And when he saw Lily trying very hard not to laugh at him he just shrugged and gave up. It seemed to work a bit better now that they stopped walking anyway.

Earlier today they had escorted Harry to the school for his first real school day. They had a short talk with his teacher, a small somewhat fat man with a wig, before classes started. Lily explained that Harry had been home schooled for now, and the man assured her it was not a problem. During the summer Harry had completed some tests that seemed to confirm that he would do fine in this class. And after Lily told him that Harry had no troubles at all with his homework so far he just smiled again.

The rest of the morning was spent under his invisibility cloak. They had slowly walked around the school while Lily kept casting very complicated wards until she was sure they would be warned in time if the school was attacked. It had been a bit boring for James, but at least now he was somewhat calmer when they finally returned to Lionfire Hall. He still had not managed to do very much in the few hours before they had to go pick up Harry from school again. Remus had tried to distract him a bit by talking about some new spell he was trying to master, but his eyes kept shifting towards the old clock that his great-grandfather had bought long ago.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud ringing noise. Surprised, he looked around. But soon enough Lily pointed him towards the school and he saw the first kids running out of it. They had to wait for a few minutes, but then Harry came outside and as soon as he saw them he ran towards his parents.

'Daddy! Mummy! I missed you.' He squealed.

'We missed you too Harry.' James smiled, he hoped that they soon would get a bit more used to not having their son at home. It was weird after six years.

'How was your day honey?' Lily asked while they started to walk away from the schoolyard and back to the hidden spot behind a few trees from where they could apparate. Once again James started to work on his new umbrella skills, but it was even harder with a third person around. Maybe he should use an engorgement charm on the stupid thing when they got back home.

Harry just shrugged: 'Okay I guess. A bit boring to be honest, at home we worked through things much faster.'

Lily smiled: 'Your new teacher has a lot bigger class to teach. But I guess it was nice to see other kids?'

Again Harry shrugged: 'I don't know… it seems they all know each other already. Although the girl that sat next to me was nice. She showed me around the school a bit during the breaks. Although in the first break we only saw the library.'

'I once knew a girl like that at Hogwarts.' James smiled innocently, totally ignoring the mock glare that Lily sent his way.

'What was her name?' She asked Harry when James did not reply to her.

'Hermione.' Harry replied, and when both his parents looked surprised he added: 'Odd name, isn't it?'

Lily was the first to recover: 'That's not the point Harry. It's just that we heard that name before and we were a bit surprised.'

James had to admit that it was technically true. But of course they were just surprised that Harry had already come to meet Hermione on his first day. It almost made him wonder if something odd was going on, but he figured it was just luck. Still he could not help asking: 'So why did you go and sit next to a girl anyway?'

'Why not?' Harry asked in return, but before James had time to think about his reply his son continued: 'And she was the only one that sat alone.'

James nodded and while Harry babbled on a bit he exchanged some meaningful glances with Lily before they apparated back home.

One week later –

James kept glancing towards the sky. After that first day he had been practising with his umbrella a bit. And he thought he knew how to use it by now. But it had not rained at all since that day. Just his luck, a bit of a dry spell during the English autumn.

Once again they were waiting for Harry to emerge from the school. Once he finally did they looked at each other in surprise when they saw his positively beaming expression. Until now Harry had not really enjoyed school. But he seemed to be in a very good mood today.

'What got you into such a good mood?' James asked.

'Oh, we had reading classes this afternoon. And when the teacher saw that Hermione and me were already finished he told us we could go to the library.' Harry excitedly explained: 'It was really cool, they have all kinds of nice books with pictures. I read a book about knights, and Hermione found one that had a huge picture of an ant hill.'

Lily smiled: 'I remember those kind of books. Glad to hear that you enjoyed yourself.'

James just shrugged. He did not really understand why people got excited about books. He always thought they were dull, although he could not really remember ever reading books with pictures in them. Maybe that made the difference.

Before he could ask anything a bushy haired blonde woman came to them and said: 'Excuse me? But my daughter wanted to ask something?'

Looking down he saw that her daughter had the same bushy hair, although it was a much darker brown. The small girl nervously shifted her feet before she very softly asked: 'I was wondering if Harry could come and play at our place today.'

James looked at Lily, he had no idea about how to handle this. In the pureblood world, there was no junior school. And even play dates were usually arranged by parents. So he just let Lily reply: 'Well, if Harry wants that then it's fine with me. I guess you are Hermione?'

The girl nodded before she turned to Harry who was nodding fervently as well: 'It sounds like fun.'

Hermione screamed and jumped to Harry to engulf him into a hug. James had to try really hard not to laugh at the suddenly panicked expression that appeared on Harry's face. But he was saved by Hermione's mother who chuckled and said: 'Easy Hermione.'

Blushing a bit Hermione let go of Harry and the two kids started to talk about their afternoon. James thought he heard some words like library and book. He should make sure to let Harry play some quidditch in the weekend to save him from 'the dark side', as Sirius liked to call anything to do with books or research. He was somewhat relieved when Hermione started talking about a cat instead. It was pretty impressive how long she could keep on talking without breathing. Meanwhile the mother introduced herself: 'I am Edna Granger.'

'Lily Potter. And my husband James Potter.' Lily replied.

'Pleasure to meet you two.' Edna smiled before she turned back to business: 'We live around the corner, but do you want me to bring Harry back home later today?'

'It is a bit hard to find from here.' Lily smiled, again James had to suppress his laughter. Apparating several hundred miles might be classified as hard to find in a muggle way. 'Maybe it is easier if we just walk with you and come and pick him up later?'

Edna looked at them with a thoughtful expression. But after a few seconds she shrugged and said: 'Why not I guess. Hermione? Why don't you and your new friend lead the way?'

The two kids cheered and practically ran away to the other side of the schoolyard. The adults followed at a much slower place while Edna assured them: 'She will wait for us before crossing the road.'

'She seemed rather happy when Harry said yes.' Lily chuckled.

Edna hesitated: 'Well, so far she had a hard time making friends. She is very smart you know. And since she is also one of the older kids in her class I am afraid some of the other kids just do not understand her.' She said all of this without bragging once about her daughter's intelligence, instead she was just listing the facts.

'Harry is smart too.' James replied, he probably sounded a bit arrogant there. But he did not care at all.

'Well, I hope they will be good friends. Hermione could use one.' Edna smiled. Then they reached the two kids at the side of the road and walked the short distance to the Granger house. It was a nice enough suburban home, but it was of course tiny next to Lionfire Hall. Maybe about the size of Dumbledore's old home in Godric's Hollow, although it had an extra level. The brick walls still looked a bit odd to James, who was used to the wizarding kind of buildings. But it could hardly surprise him after walking through an area filled with similar buildings.

There were a few handshakes and a promise to come and pick up Harry at six in the evening before Edna and the two kids walked inside. Lily and James walked away until they were out of sight before Lily asked: 'You have your cloak?'

'Of course, I never leave home without it anymore.' James replied while pulling it out of his magically enhanced trouser pocket.

Seconds later they were back at the house and once again Lily was casting all kind of complicated wards. They only just managed to finish before six and decided not to take the effort of apparating home. Instead, they went into a small pub where Lily ordered two cokes for them. To Lily's amusement James almost spat it out at first, but after a few careful sips he decided it was okay.

Only after they picked up Harry and apparated home to find a couple of very anxious elves and an angry werewolf did James realise that they should have sent a message.

Four weeks later –

Once again James and Lily were waiting outside the school. They had both mentioned a few times it would be fine if the other stayed home. But since both of them were still a bit uncomfortable when Harry was away from home they both apparated to pick him up every day. During the last few weeks Harry had usually left the school together with Hermione, happily chatting about whatever kids talked about with each other. So it was a bit of surprise when they saw Harry coming out first and an even bigger surprise when Hermione walked outside and immediately ran towards her mother.

As soon as Harry reached them Lily asked: 'Hey Harry, what is wrong with Hermione?'

Harry shrugged uncomfortably: 'I am not sure. I think I scared her.'

James and Lily looked at each other in surprise. Eventually James asked: 'Why did you do that?'

'It was an accident.' Harry defended himself, 'You even told me I could not help it.'

'I did?' James asked, baffled by the reply. Then he suddenly remembered a talk they had a while ago: 'Oh wait, you did accidental magic?'

Harry nodded, his eyes to the ground in shame.

'Well, you can't help accidental magic.' Lily admitted, 'But I can see how it would surprise Hermione. Why don't we go talk with her? I am sure we can find a solution.'

Harry suddenly looked up and hopefully asked: 'Really?'

'Of course.' Lily smiled before she softly pushed Harry towards his friend who was now also talking to her mother. James just frowned, he wondered what she was planning. After all, they had agreed that they could not simply tell the Grangers about magic. There were some exceptions in the statute of secrecy that would allow them to inform the Grangers. But for most of them the Grangers would have to think Hermione was the one doing the accidental magic. Of course, even when those exceptions were applied it was strongly advised to let the ministry or Hogwarts handle it. But they were hardly going to get them involved. Still, his wife was much smarter than he and most likely had a brilliant idea.

Instead of wondering about it he asked Harry: 'What did you do anyway?'

'Oh, the teacher was being really unfair about one of our assignments.' Harry started to explain before he actually chuckled: 'I turned his wig blue. It was so funny, but then I saw the scared expression on Hermione's face and it was not funny anymore. I actually managed to turn it back somehow, and I do not think the teacher even noticed it. But of course all others were laughing at him, so he was pretty mad for the rest of the day.'

Lily's glare towards him was enough to stop James laughter at the idea of a blue haired teacher. Then he actually started to wonder about how Harry managed to turn the wig back to its original colour. That level of control was almost impossible for a seven year old. James still remembered some of his own accidental magic, but he had never managed to do something on purpose until he was a bit older and his father learned him a few tricks.

Before he could ask Harry about it they reached the two Granger women though. And they could just overhear Hermione saying: 'And I am sure that Harry now will avoid me as well, just like the others did.'

'Sst, it is okay little one.' Her mother replied, 'I am sure Harry will understand that it was not your fault.'

Harry actually wanted to reply to that, but Lily was faster: 'You mean similar things happened to you before Hermione?'

Slowly the girl turned around. The expression on her face was simply terrified when she looked at Lily. There were tears in her eyes and her mouth was half open. For the first time James noticed her front teeth were rather large. He was impressed that the girl still managed to look Lily in the eye while she nodded and said: 'Well, not exactly similar. But other weird things.'

Lily kneeled down in front of Hermione and smiled: 'That is okay. I had the same problem when I was about your age.'

'Really?' Hermione asked in surprise. And when Lily nodded she beamed and asked a few very quick questions that got totally messed up in her excitement. Drily her mother clarified: 'I believe the most important thing that Hermione wants to know is if you can somehow learn to control it. And if there is a name for those accidents.'

Lily stood up again: 'Yes. When I was about nine I actually managed to control it a bit. And a few years later I received some formal training, now I never have accidents like that again. Harry does though.'

Harry looked surprised that his name was dragged into the conversation but he quickly said: 'Yeah, I think I did the hair thing. And I thought I scared you.'

Both Hermione and Edna looked between Lily and Harry in wonder. Eventually Edna asked: 'So, is there a name for your… talent?'

'Yes there is.' Lily nodded, 'But maybe we can discuss it at a more private location?'

Edna looked torn between learning the name of her daughters 'condition' and respecting Lily's wishes. But eventually she nodded: 'I guess Jack needs to hear this as well. Why don't you come over to our place at seven tonight?'

'That sounds like a good idea.' Lily agreed, 'I need some time to look some things up anyway.'

Edna looked like she wanted to ask what Lily had to look up, but eventually she just nodded again: 'We'll see you tonight then.'

- Four hours later –

The three Potters apparated behind a small building close to the Granger house. Lily had told him that it had something to do with the electricity network, but he had not understood a word of her explanation. Well beside that it was out of order. Still, the important thing was that it seemed abandoned enough and offered enough cover to risk apparating behind it.

Soon they arrived at the Grangers, where they were introduced to Hermione's father Jack. The man had the same brown hair as Hermione, but beside that she really took after her mother. Jack had a rather square build and deep eyes. As soon as they all were seated he asked Lily: 'So, Edna told me you experienced the same problems as Hermione when you were a kid?'

'I think so.' Lily nodded, 'For example, the TV would keep switching to another program if I did not like the current one.'

'Oh, I used to do that all the time.' Hermione exclaimed.

'Can you tell me about some other things you did?' Lily wondered.

'Well… My parents always say that I used to make toys and books fly to me before I could walk. And back in nursery school I once changed my clothes to a green colour. Things like that.' Hermione slowly replied.

Lily smiled: 'That sounds familiar. Before I go on, what do you think that might cause those little problems?'

The three Grangers looked at each other before Edna reluctantly smiled: 'The only real solution we could think of was that Hermione was using magic somehow. Ridiculous of course… I mean, there are some evidences of limited telekinesis and things like that, but nothing that made sense when compared to Hermione's little accidents.'

Lily had started to smile as soon as Edna used the word 'magic'. During the afternoon she and Remus had studied the statute of secrecy. And they found out that the easiest way to breach it was if muggle parents already suspected their kid of using magic. Of course, Edna's explanation had been very unsure. But it seemed like Lily accepted it as good enough.

She actually chuckled before she said: 'Well, I do hate to disappoint you. But that was exactly my problem as well.'

All of the Grangers looked at her in disbelief. Eventually it was Hermione who asked: 'You mean to say that you can use magic? And Harry as well?'

Lily shrugged: 'And James too. Although Harry still needs to learn how to control his magic. Like you, he has only done accidental magic so far.'

Now it was Jack who asked: 'I admit that I have some trouble believing it. Can you show us some magic or so?'

'Sure.' Lily nodded before she withdrew her wand and pointed it toward the table. A few seconds later it started a short clumsy dance on its four legs. The Grangers looked at it in wonder, as soon as it stopped Jack actually ran his hand past one of the legs, possibly looking for hidden tricks.

Lily chuckled: 'James can do a much more convincing trick.'

James grinned and stood up before he changed himself into Prongs. He cursed when his antlers crashed into the lamp above the table. It was a good thing no one could understand him while he was in his stag form anyway, otherwise Lily would have been mad at him cursing in front of Harry. After the Grangers had looked at him for a while he changed back, pulled his own wand out of his trousers and used a reparo to repair the damaged lamp.

Again Hermione was the first to speak: 'Will I be able to learn all that?'

Surprisingly it was Harry who answered: 'Mum always says that not everybody can learn how to change into an animal. But I want to do it too.'

The two elder Grangers seemed to be in shock so James said: 'Maybe it would be a good idea if we leave you alone for a while? So you can talk about it. Then maybe next Sunday you would like to visit our house so we can give you a bit more of an introduction to the magical world?'

Hermione was almost jumping up and down in excitement about that and both her parents slowly nodded. Eventually Edna said: 'We'll talk about a time and things like that tomorrow after school, if that is alright with you?'

'Of course it is.' Lily smiled while she stood up. 'See you tomorrow then.'

Once the three Potters were outside again James looked at his watch and noticed that they had only been there for thirty minutes. He softly said: 'Well, that went quick.'

Lily chuckled: 'It was smart of you though. To give them some time, I still remember how much effort it took professor McGonagall to make my parents accept that magic was real.'

'I think it is just cool that Hermione will come to our place. Can I show her my room?' Harry interrupted.

'You are a bit young for that Harry.' James replied while repressing a smile. He failed when he saw Harry's puzzled expression. Lily just slowly shook her head, or maybe she was looking around. Suddenly she grabbed both their arms and apparated them back to Lionfire Hall.

_A/N: Pfew, that was a hard chapter to write somehow. I eventually gave up making the kids sound like kids, it is hard enough for me to do so in Dutch, let alone in English. I guess they are just very smart kids that sound like adults when you write down their conservations;) Hope you liked it anyway._

_Twelve reviews this time, very nice:D_

_Dogsby: Yeah, although one or two of the Potters do survive every now and then, but it seems the Longbottoms have their bad luck repeated in most other fanfics. _

_SlytherinLover143: Yeah, they want to make sure they can protect Harry and the other kids when the time comes. I am still not sure about the pairing, if it comes at all;)_

_Sir-midget99: Thanks and I will, can hardly stop doing so with all those reviews._

_My Flawed Design: Thanks, and here you go;)_

_Debate4life: Thanks, I am planning to at least cover the Hogwart years, maybe a bit more._

_Happylife: Yeah, I think one of the only choices Dumbledore made in canon and that James and Lily would agree with is that he wanted Harry to have a normal childhood. Of course he messed that up by bringing him to the Dursley's, but the idea was good…_

_Harngin: Well, as you can see I was going to contact Hermione;) And welcome to the story._

_Autumngold: As you can see from Lily's wardcasting in this chapter they take Harry's security outside Lionfire Hall rather serious. I am not quite sure if she will be able to add anything to the Hogwart wards. But most likely they will at least address the security issue._

_ILikeComps: I think kids learn best when having fun, it always worked like that for me at least. So they might as well create a fun learning environment. That will be much more fun to write about as well._

_Taeniaea: Thanks, and nice to see one of the people that used to review to my earlier stories here :D_

_RRW: The idea is tempting, but I guess uzi's might ruin the fights a bit ;)_

_MAFITA: As normal as possible when growing up in a wizarding house and surrounded by marauders at least I guess :P_


	13. Welcoming the Grangers

**Welcoming the Grangers**

It was almost noon and James and Harry were waiting in front of the outer gate of Lionfire Hall. Lily had left to pick up the Grangers a few minutes ago. Harry seemed a bit nervous about it, but before James could think of something comforting to say four people appeared just before the gate, all of them were stumbling badly. Lily was of course used to portkey travel, but the weight of three stumbling Grangers pulling on the piece of rope that she had used as a portkey took her along.

'Sorry about the uncomfortable landing, but it is the easiest way to travel a few hundred miles in a second. Welcome!' James cheerfully greeted them as soon as they all found their balance again.

'Thanks.' Jack drily replied before looking around and adding: 'To where exactly.'

'I guess to whatever lies beyond that wall.' Hermione replied, pointing towards the gate.

Both Jack and Edna frowned before her mother asked: 'What wall dear?'

'Just a moment,' James grinned, 'There are some muggle-repellent wards on the estate, I just have to add the two of you.'

'Muggle?' Edna wondered.

'That is what wizards call non-magical people.' Lily explained while James concentrated upon the wards.

Now Jack frowned again: 'You make it sound like we are insects that need to be repelled.'

James considered this for a few seconds, it did sound a bit like that. 'That was not my intention, so I apologize if it sounded that way.' He quickly ended any further discussion by finishing his job. And both the adult Grangers gasped in surprise when they could suddenly see the wall. Suddenly he wondered about something and asked: 'What did you see before?'

'A large amount of poison ivy and brambles.' Edna replied, 'It looked almost as hard to cross as this wall.'

'Oh?' Jack asked in surprise, 'I saw rusty barbed wire and sharp metal and glass fragments lying around.'

James nodded, apparently the ward had some kind of built-in legilimency that made the estate seem as a very unwelcoming place to muggles. He wondered what would happen if a group of muggles accidentally ran into the ward and everybody started describing different things, but it was highly unlikely anyway since they were as far away from normal travel routes as you could get.

Lily used the short silence: 'Anyway, welcome to Lionfire Hall.'

James shook his head to clear his musings: 'Yes, of course. Harry? Will you lead us in?'

Harry nodded fervently, opening the gates was one of the few 'magic' things he could do already. Of course, it was more accurate to say that Timmy would open the gates as soon as he sensed someone with Potter blood standing in front of them. But that was a minor detail. To his surprise, none of the Grangers acted surprised when the doors opened of their own accord. He guessed the muggles had some way of opening doors without touching as well. Maybe he should ask Lily about that sometime.

They did react surprised when they saw what was inside the wall though. It was an impressive sight of course. The huge old trees, the marble statues and the ponds that could be seen from the entrance. And behind all that the smaller, but still impressive, inner wall that guarded the actual manor. Only a few of its higher towers were visible beyond it.

They walked towards the inner wall in silence. Well, as long as you ignored the sound their feet made on the gravel of the walkway. And Hermione's questions about every human statue they passed, although she stopped after Harry named the first five as Potter ancestors and she did not recognize any of them.

There were more surprised shouts when the Grangers saw the buildings inside the inner wall. And James quickly let them inside the main building and towards one of the smaller living rooms. There was already a nice fire burning in the hearth and as soon as they were all seated Timmy appeared and asked them what they wanted to drink. The two adult Grangers were able to ask for tea, while Hermione asked for water. But as soon as Timmy had popped away again Edna stammered: 'Wha - I mean… Who was that?'

'That was Timmy.' Lily replied, 'He is a house elf. Together with his sister Jenny he pretty much runs the house for us.'

'You mean… like a servant race?' Hermione asked, clearly not liking the idea.

James grinned, Lily had reacted pretty much the same way long ago. So he let her explain: 'It is not like that. They thrive on our magic and are actually better off while working for a house. At the same time, we would not know what to do without them. It is a bit like the Egyptian plover, if you know what I mean.'

Both Hermione and Edna nodded, but when Edna noticed the confused looks on all the male faces in the room she explained: 'There is a story from Herodotus about how crocodiles would open their mouths to let a small bird called the Egyptian plover fly in and eat the meat that got stuck between their teeth. So the bird profits because of the food, and the crocodile profits because his teeth get cleaned.'

Lily nodded: 'The relationship between house elves and their wizarding family is much more complicated, but it is the same principle.'

'Beside that, Timmy and Jenny are pretty much friends of the family.' James added, 'Although I admit this is not true for all elves.'

The Grangers all nodded in acceptance before Hermione asked: 'Are there any other magical races?' She started looking around to see if something was hidden in the room. Funnily enough Remus just walked inside, he had obviously heard her question for he said: 'Well, there are werewolves like me for example.' He bowed to the shocked family and said: 'Remus Lupin, nice to meet you.'

James had to laugh. He liked how much more comfortable Remus had become with his furry little problem since he got a regular supply of wolfsbane potion. In fact, usually Sirius would come over at the night of the full moon and the three of them would have great fun running around the estate. 'A werewolf?' Jack was the first to ask, 'Doesn't that mean you are dangerous?'

Remus shrugged before taking a seat: 'As long as I take my potion I am fine. If I do not, I turn into a bloodthirsty monster one night a month.'

'Oh, that is not too bad.' Jack nodded, 'In fact, I often say my wi-'

He was interrupted by a cough from Edna and he suddenly blushed and said: 'But that's not important right now.'

Lily filled the suddenly uncomfortable silence: 'Remus is a good friend of us. And an honorary uncle to Harry. Beside that he also helps us with our work.'

'So, what exactly do you do for a living?' Edna wondered, 'You know, Jack and I were talking about how both of you are always around to pick up Harry. And we started to wonder if you just created money out of thin air or so. And I have to admit that after I saw the estate I almost believed it.'

Lily hesitated: 'We are pretty much researching new and better ways to use magic. So the good thing is that we can make our own time schedule.'

They had agreed that they could not tell the Grangers too much about what they were actually doing. Not alone would it most likely frighten them away, they would also be unable to defend that knowledge from any other wizard. And James had the suspicion that some wizards would routinely 'scan' new muggle arrivals to the wizarding world. So James decided to quickly change the subject: 'Actually, galleons are impossible to create by magic. At least, by human magic. The goblins can do it of course, but they would never abuse that power. They are too fanatic about money.'

'Galleons?' Hermione wanted to know, but she was interrupted by her father who asked: 'But what about our money?'

'Also protected.' Remus replied while Harry was softly explaining galleons to Hermione. James had to wonder how much Harry knew of them himself, but it was nice to see. Meanwhile Remus continued: 'It is one of the few things our governments cooperate on. Incidentally, one of the reasons that gold is so valuable is that it can not be conjured.'

The Grangers took some time to process this before Edna said: 'This is all very interesting, but maybe we should focus on what is going to happen to Hermione?'

Hermione fanatically nodded: 'When am I going to learn how to use magic?'

Lily smiled: 'Sadly, your real training can only begin after your eleventh birthday.' Hermione's smile immediately dampened, so Lily continued: 'But we were planning to give Harry and some of his friends some extra training before that time. So if your parents allow it you can join as well.'

Hermione immediately turned to her parents with a hopeful expression. However, the two older Grangers looked at each other before Jack asked: 'What will you teach her?'

'Mostly subjects that we can work on without actively using magic. Astronomy, potions, arithmancy, ancient runes… maybe even some herbology, although some of our friends have a much better greenhouse at their place.' Lily explained.

'And quidditch.' Harry quickly added.

All three of the Grangers looked like they did not understand a thing about Lily's reply, let alone Harry's addendum, however Edna just asked: 'So, is their any danger involved?'

'Not really.' It was Remus who answered, 'There are always some risks, even with the easy potions and herbology plants that we will start with. And let's not start about quidditch… But it's the same with a football training for example. And even if something goes wrong I can assure you that we are all more than able to heal any injuries.'

Both Grangers nodded, but before they replied to Hermione's still ongoing silent plea for permission Jack said: 'Something is still bugging me though… About those wards… Tell me, what do your people think about nonmagical people like us?'

James, Remus and Lily all looked at each other. Eventually it was James who replied: 'I admit that there is a small but loudmouthed minority in our society that dislikes muggles and muggleborn wizards or witches. Several centuries ago it was a large majority, but by now most of us are either friendly to muggles or at worst indifferent. It helped a lot when the muggles stopped actively hunting us, not that they ever had much success…'

'You can see them as conservative.' Lily explained, 'Just like in your world an openly gay politician running for prime minister would have a lot of trouble winning over certain voters. As a muggleborn myself, I would have the same trouble if I ran for minister of magic, even though I married into one of the oldest wizarding families.'

'So, did you even feel unwelcome in this world?' Edna wanted to know.

Lily carefully considered her answer: 'At times I did. But like James said, it is actually a minority that is really against muggles. Sadly, that minority is quite influential. But still there are so many wonderful things about the wizarding world that I never really considered going back to the muggle world.' After a short silence she softly continued: 'Most of all magic itself, I still remember the day I bought my wand.'

Edna nodded and looked at Jack, who suddenly turned to Hermione and said: 'We think you can join this training stuff.' It looked like he wanted to say more, but he was interrupted by Hermione's and Harry's loud cheers. As soon as they calmed down a bit Harry asked: 'Can I show Hermione around now?'

Lily smiled: 'Sure you can.'

Without a word the two kids ran out of the room. Edna chuckled: 'I guess all the talking was a bit boring for them. I sometimes forgot how young Hermione still is.'

'Believe me, I know what you mean.' Lily seriously replied. And James silently agreed, they tried not to let the prophecy influence their upbringing of Harry too much and allow him to be a kid. But it was very difficult sometimes. Part of him still wanted to hire a squad of elite hit wizards, equip them with invisibility cloaks and tell them never to leave Harry alone.

It seemed Hermione's parents wanted to know much more about the wizarding world, for Jack asked: 'You said something about marrying into one of the oldest wizarding families Lily? Combined with the estate, I have to wonder… are you some kind of nobility?'

James grinned: 'There is some title attached to our name yeah. But to be quite honest I cannot really recall it. We never use it inside the wizarding world, and it is centuries ago that one of my ancestors attended an official muggle ball. Sirius would most likely be able to tell me my title. His family forced him to learn all those things by heart.'

'Sirius?' Edna wondered.

'Harry's other honorary uncle.' James replied, they had considered inviting Sirius and Amelia as well today. But in the end they considered it safer to introduce the Grangers to the wizarding world without Sirius' enthusiastic help. 'His family is one of the more conservative ones.' It was funny how much friendlier such a word sounded, normally he would have called the Blacks evil or dark or even obsessed by blood status. 'Sirius never really agreed with them, and he ran away from home when he was sixteen. But I am sure he still remembers all those boring lessons. I think he is also a duke or something like that.'

'I see.' Jack nodded, 'It is weird to hear you dismissing a title like that so easily. We have this customer who is a baron, and he insists we put that title on any correspondence we send to him. I think he would kill to be a duke.'

James grinned: 'I am not even sure if our titles even work in the muggle world. But to be honest, no one in our world really cares about them.'

'All that really matters in our world is your family. There are several so called 'noble and ancient houses'. Both James' and Sirius' families happen to belong to that group.' Remus replied, 'And even when you are not a part of one of those families you can get far in our society, our current minister is from a far younger family for example. It is just that those families traditionally control a large part of our government.'

'However fascinating this all is… Can you tell us a bit more about what will happen to Hermione after her eleventh birthday?' Edna asked. This of course started a long discussion about all the wonders of Hogwarts. In the end, Hermione's parents seemed to love the view of the school that James and the others had painted, but they disliked the idea of sending their daughter to a far away boarding school. Still, James thought they would eventually get used to the idea. Especially since it was the only way for Hermione to learn magic.

For a while they kept on talking about the differences between the muggle and wizarding worlds. Then Jack made the mistake to ask about wizarding sports, which led James into a very long and detailed description which involved projecting a full quidditch match from the pensieve. Meanwhile, Lily and Remus took Edna out of the room to find out what the kids were doing. Just when James thought that Jack was finally starting to get addicted to quidditch the women returned and pulled his new quidditch friend away. According to Lily he was still pouting when they portkeyed back to their own home.

_A/N: Not quite sure about this chapter. First, it took me a lot of effort to get some words on the paper, then it suddenly just came out of my fingers without much conscious thought… Anyway, I think Jack and Edna got a decent introduction to the wizarding world. Probably more extended but less practical then the visit from McGonagall that they would have normally received a few years later._


	14. An invitation

**An invitation**

Hand in hand Lily and James walked towards the Burrow. Lily could not hide her surprise when she first saw the rickety construction which seemed to be a more or less random assortment of small rooms attached to a larger central house. It was about five stories high and obviously kept together by magic.

James grinned: 'You've never seen the Burrow before then?'

Lily shook her head: 'No, I've met Arthur and Molly quite a few times. But somehow I never really visited their home. It looks cozy though.'

'That it is.' James nodded, the few times that he had visited the Weasleys he had immediately felt at home in the small but friendly building. Although he still wondered why they had added all those additional bedrooms on top of the central building. There was more than enough space to build all of them at ground level instead. But he guessed they liked it better this way. Suddenly he grinned: 'It is not even the oddest wizarding home around Ottery St. Catchpole.'

Lily smiled back at him: 'Well, I would expect nothing less from the Lovegoods.'

James reply was interrupted when they saw four kids running towards a small orchard. All four had flaming red hair and were shouting loudly about something. James tried to remember their names, he knew he had heard them once or twice… But he could only remember Ginny's name, it had been quite a shock to hear the Weasley family finally had a daughter after seven generations with lots of sons.

'Don't wizard kids attend school?' Lily wanted to know.

James shook his head: 'No, they are homeschooled most of the time. They probably got a free afternoon because Molly knew we were coming. My parents used to do the same. Although of course I did not have any brothers or sisters.'

Lily frowned, she much preferred a real school. James only shrugged, he did not see any problems with homeschooling. Although he had to admit that Harry was learning some interesting things on his school so far. Last week, he had worked on some muggle device called a computer… James was quite sure he still did not understand what Harry meant, but according to Lily those computer things were very important somehow. He just nodded and accepted his wife's opinion. After all, since the land mine incident he knew better than to underestimate muggle inventions.

Molly was already waiting for them and she quickly led them into the small kitchen. She busily moved around until she was quite sure that they both had a cup of tea and a handmade surprisingly good piece of cake. Meanwhile James wondered if he and Lily should have dressed in wizarding clothes as well. They pretty much dressed in muggle clothing all the time now. Of course, Lily had always done so outside Hogwarts, but James used to wear robes every now and then. Still, Molly was obviously wearing her best robes right now, and he felt somewhat uncomfortable in his own muggle clothes. His mother would have been able to tell him how to dress on a casual visit to a pureblood family, but he himself had never really cared about all those etiquette rules.

As soon as Molly sat down as well Lily smiled: 'Thank you Molly, it's delicious. So, how are you?'

Molly smiled in return before she replied: 'I'm fine. I have to admit it is nice to have visitors for a change. The kids are wonderful of course, but sometimes it seems like Fred and George are only interested in pranks. And Ron only cares about quidditch… At least Percy and Ginny like to learn.'

Lily nodded in understanding, although James failed to see what was wrong with pranks and quidditch. Instead he changed the subject: 'Is Arthur still working at the ministry?'

'Yes, still on the same position as well.' Molly nodded with a small frown, 'I keep saying he could get a better job, but he just loves what he does.'

'What does he do again?' Lily asked.

'Oh, he works on the misuse of muggle artifacts office.' Molly replied with a small headshake: 'He is just fascinated by muggles.'

For a moment it looked like Lily wanted to ask more about Arthur's job, but then she said: 'Well, there is nothing wrong with that. We actually sent Harry to a muggle primary school.'

Clearly surprised Molly asked: 'Really? But why?'

'We thought it would be good for Harry to get some background in both societies.' Lily explained part of the reason. Of course, the prophecy and William's comments on it had much more to do with their school selection, but they could hardly tell everybody about that. Besides that, James had the feeling that Lily would have wanted to send Harry to a muggle school anyway.

Molly still looked flabbergasted at the idea of sending your kids to a primary school though. James just grinned, he realized it would be futile to change her mind on the topic. And so he just said: 'Believe it or not, but Harry accidentally met a muggleborn witch in his new class.'

Their host blinked a few times before she said: 'Well, that is nice for her I guess. I mean, it must be hard for a muggleborn to go to Hogwarts without knowing anyone.'

James nodded and Lily said: 'We actually want to give both her and Harry some introduction courses into magic.'

Molly frowned: 'She already knows she is a witch then?'

'Yeah.' James replied, 'Harry had some accidental magic during class and she blamed herself for it. So we just had to tell her.'

Molly distractedly nodded while offering them another helping of cake. Eventually she said: 'I guess it will be good for her. And Harry can probably use some extra training next to that muggle school.'

Lily frowned, she always was a bit upset when purebloods seemed to belittle muggle things. So James hastily continued: 'Well, actually we thought it would be a good idea to teach Harry a bit of potions, arithmancy and some other of the wandless subjects in advance. And we were wondering if your kids would like to join in as well.'

Molly visibly hesitated while Lily clarified: 'There are no costs involved, and we do not really plan on formal schooling with homework and all that. We just want to use the Saturdays to prepare Harry and some of his friends a bit better for Hogwarts.'

'All Saturdays?' Molly immediately asked, and when Lily nodded her eyes widened. After a while she said: 'I am not sure if it will be a good idea. I mean, I like to keep the kids at home, and I hardly think it is a good idea to let Fred and George learn any more magic than they do by themselves already. Their pranks are bad enough as it is.'

James wanted to ask about the pranks, but a look from Lily convinced him it wasn't a good idea. So instead he said: 'Well, we are hardly going to teach them advanced charms or transfiguration. We just want to give them a theoretical background, and maybe some practical lessons about how and when to use what kind of magic.' Especially related to duels and magical fights in general, but he hardly wanted to tell Molly about that.

Molly nodded, but she was clearly not convinced. 'I'll discuss it with Arthur. But I think we prefer to keep the kids at home. Maybe it will be different when Fred and George go to Hogwarts and Ron and Ginny will be the only ones left at home, but for now they have a lot of fun together.'

Lily wanted to say something else but James just nodded and said: 'I see.' He had been afraid of this reaction. Pureblood kids almost never left their home for more than a few hours before heading to Hogwarts. Looking back to his own Hogwarts years he figured it would have done him a lot of good if his parents had sent him to a primary school as well. He would never tell Lily, but by now he realized that he had been a bit on the arrogant side during his first few years. It was difficult to adapt from being the only kid in your parents house to a castle full of kids.

He had one more question that he needed an answer for before their talk would flow back to more innocent subjects: 'Oh, one other thing Molly. Do you know if the Lovegoods are home? We planned to make a short stop there as well, now that we are in the region anyway.'

Molly shook her head in a disapproving way: 'No, they are on their annual hunting trip.'

Lily looked up in surprise: 'I admit that I do not really know them, but they did not really seem the types to go hunting?'

'Oh, I did not mean that they are going to kill animals.' Molly quickly clarified: 'They are trying to find some mythical creature. A hornock or something. Xeno writes about them all the time in that magazine of him. They are supposed to return next week I think, but if they find some 'clue' they might as well decide to stay away a few weeks longer. I just hope their daughter is alright, it seems irresponsible to me to pull a kid along with you on such a journey. Especially when her mother is working on new spells half the time.'

'Working on new spells? During a journey?' Lily wondered, 'Don't you need a laboratory for that?'

Molly shrugged: 'Yes, but I hardly think the room she uses at her home qualifies as a safe laboratory. So I do not expect her to stop working during her vacations.'

Lily frowned, and although James was sure she was going to try and tell the Lovegoods about the dangers of researching spells in an unsafe environment he was quite sure it would be futile. Molly and Arthur would most likely turn down their invitation because they were too conservative and maybe too cautious. But the Lovegoods were pretty much the exact opposite of the Weasley's.

For a while the three chatted on, mostly about their children. Which meant that for most of the time James only listened. He was somewhat surprised to learn that the Weasley's oldest son, Bill, still had a different defense against the dark arts teacher every year. Apparently the position was still cursed.

About two hours later they said their goodbyes to Molly Weasley, who ensured them once more that she would ask Arthur's opinion about their invitation. However, as soon as they were out of earshot Lily said: 'I do not believe we will be seeing any Weasley's next Saturday.'

James shook his head: 'I warned you. Purebloods can be rather stubborn about their kids. Maybe we should have just invited them for one day instead. That way, if the kids liked our lessons they could have asked their parents if it was okay to come back again the next week.'

Lily slowly shook her head in reply: 'I admit that it might have worked better that way. But I already started to dislike myself because we had to evade the truth half the time. It was bad enough that we had to do so with the Grangers, but I do not want to manipulate people if we can avoid it.'

James nodded. It made sense, although he sometimes wondered if sentiments like those really had a place in their situation. Still, he did not comment on Lily's opinion and they apparated back to Lionfire Hall.

Back home they went to the sitting room where they were welcomed by not only Sirius and Remus, but also by the headmaster. Lily nodded to him first: 'We did not expect you today Albus.'

Albus gravely nodded: 'I know, but I have some news that I felt I had to share with you.'

This drew their attention. During the last few years all four of them had often commented to each other how frustrating it was that Albus never really shared his knowledge. So it had to be something important. As soon as they were all seated James asked: 'What happened Albus?'

'I have some good and bad news. Although…' Albus slowly replied and while Lily impatiently motioned him to go on he smiled: 'Let me start with the bad news. Some of my sources believe that Voldemort's spirit is hiding in the forests of Albania.'

'Can we hunt him down?' Sirius immediately wanted to know.

The headmaster slowly shook his head: 'I believe that will be almost impossible. Albania might be a small country, but still we will need a small army to really search it. And I can hardly see the Albanian ministry permitting that.'

'Maybe we should ask them to do something about it instead?' Remus suggested.

Albus hesitated: 'I can try. But it will be difficult not to reveal that we know of the dark lord's survival. And that might cause all kind of problems.'

'So you suggest we just ignore it?' James frowned.

Albus shrugged: 'I hardly believe we can kill Voldemort's wraith anyway while he still has horcruxes. So I would prefer to hide our knowledge about our survival. Time is our biggest friend right now.'

James reluctantly nodded: 'What is the good news then?'

'Well, it is a bit of mixed news actually. I managed to discover the location of a horcrux. However, when I went there I found only this.' He pulled a golden necklace out of the pocket of one of his robes and opened it. Then he pulled a small piece of paper out of it and handed it to James. He folded it open and read aloud: 'To the Dark Lord. I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more. R.A.B.'

'So, somebody else is hunting horcruxes?' Lily asked in surprise.

Next to her Sirius' face turned very white and he asked: 'R.A.B.?'

'Yes.' James nodded after looking at the piece of paper again.

'Those are my brother's initials.' Sirius softly whispered.

James frowned. He had never really got to know Regulus before he joined the death eaters. But he had always hoped that Sirius' brother had seen the light before his untimely murder by his new friends. Maybe he had been right.

Lily asked: 'You think your brother did this?'

Sirius slowly shook his head: 'I do not know. Maybe I should visit Grimmauld Place and see if I can find out somehow.' He had inherited his parental home when his mother died two years ago. But so far Sirius had not even visited it, there were too many bad memories. And he much preferred the new house he shared with Amelia and Susan.

'I have to admit I never thought of your brother Sirius.' Dumbledore admitted, 'Still, so far I have not been able to think of any other names that match the initials. So it might very well be true. If you do find the lockets, or even the remains, I would like to see it. I somehow have the feeling this replica reminds me of something, but it eludes me somehow.'

Sirius nodded in understanding, although his eyes were staring to a place very far away. Or maybe to a place very long ago. Albus continued: 'Let me assure you that the person that actually removed the original horcrux was quite determined in his fight against Voldemort.'

Sirius just nodded again, but Remus asked: 'How would you know that?'

'It was hidden in the middle of a lake filled with inferi. And on that island was a small basin filled with a rather nasty potion that you could only remove by drinking it.' Albus cheerfully explained.

'And you went in there all alone?' Lily asked. Albus just nodded and Lily forcefully continued: 'Next time you find a horcrux you will ask one or several of us to accompany you Albus.'

The headmaster chuckled: 'Let me assure you Lily, that I am quite capa-'

Lily interrupted him with one of her fierce glares: 'That was not a suggestion headmaster.'

It seemed Sirius cheered up a bit when that glare was directed to someone else for a change, and he happily added: 'You better listen to her Albus, she is dangerous when she looks like that.' Lily only turned to him for a second, but it was enough to make Sirius raise both his hands in a gesture that was half defensive, half an apology.

After a short silence Albus chuckled again: 'Well, I guess I can see the wisdom in your advice Lily. I promise I will inform you next time.'

'Good.' Lily nodded, 'At least it is good to learn that you are on the right track. Do you have any idea about the other horcruxes?'

'Sadly, no. I hoped this one would give me a clue. Maybe when we find the real horcrux… When are you planning to visit your family house Sirius?'

Sirius shrugged: 'Thursday?'

'Would you mind if I accompany you? I am very interested to see if your brother was actually R.A.B..'

'Sure, why not.' Sirius shrugged again.

'Did you have any other news Albus?' Lily wanted to know. As soon as the headmaster shook his head she turned to Sirius and Remus instead: 'Then I wonder how your visits worked out?'

Remus was the first to reply: 'The MacMillans seemed to think their son did not need any extra training. To be honest, I think they were a bit shocked that a werewolf suggested it.'

'Ridiculous.' James indignantly complained, but Remus just shrugged. Sirius took over: 'Amos Diggory actually thought it was a great idea. But they had already enrolled their son Cedric for some international exchange program. I believe he is going to visit some Canadian family for a few weeks and then their son will visit the Diggories. So he will hardly have any time to come to Lionfire Hall before he starts at Hogwarts next year.'

'I heard some good stories about Cedric. I wonder how he will be.' Albus mused.

'What about the Abbotts?' Lily wanted to know.

'Oh, right.' Sirius nodded, 'Amelia visited them yesterday, but they refused the offer. Amelia was sure they would have agreed if her sister-in-law had been able to ask them. She was apparently really close with mother Abbott during their time at Hogwarts. But Amelia herself barely knew the woman.'

'So, that means we will only see Neville, Susan and Hermione next Saturday. Beside Harry of course.' Lily summarized.

'No luck with the Weasley and Lovegood families then?' Remus asked.

Lily shook her head: 'Molly said she would discuss things with Arthur, but I do not expect anything from that discussion. And the Lovegoods are travelling at the moment, maybe their daughter will join us later.'

Remus nodded: 'Well, a small group might be better anyway.'

'I admit I really look forward to see how those kids will perform when they come to Hogwarts.' Albus commented, 'We once suggested a similar program, but it was shot down by purebloods.'

'Why?' Lily wondered.

'Mainly because they were afraid that their own kids would be at a disadvantage if muggleborns received additional training.' Albus shrugged, 'Even when we argued that their kids would be welcome as well they still refused it. Just like they keep forbidding a class about wizarding culture.'

Lily sadly shook her head: 'Purebloods.'

Funnily enough none of the purebloods in the room disagreed with her. They all agreed that most of the purebloods were much to conservative for their own good. For a while they chatted about the political climate, but then Albus said he had to go back to Hogwarts. To their surprise Sirius also had to go because he wanted to have dinner ready before Amelia came home. So after a few quick goodbyes the remaining three went back to their preparations for next Saturday.

_A/N: Oops, almost forgot to update today. I thought I had until tomorrow. But still, two hours left of today, so I did not break my three-day-update rhythm yet;)_

_Once again we have a few chapters that only span a couple of days. And a chapter filled with talking… But I think there were some important events in this chapter nonetheless. So I just hope it was still interesting;)_

_Eight reviews this time:_

_Teufel1987:__ Well, in my defense, Harry and his friends often call it soccer. I do agree though that football is a weird name for a sport where you use your hands…_

_Happylady:__ Thanks, I figured adults would want to know things like this when they learn about some new world. In canon Harry is of course barely interested in politics during his first few years. _

_ILikeComps:__ I think being perfectly honest about the prejudices against muggleborns would have been a bit risky yeah. Although, I actually do believe that there is only a small minority actively discriminating against muggleborns, the main problem is that most others do not really care._

_My Flawed Design:__ Thanks, and I managed to update within three days again. Only just, but still;)_

_JER:__ Thanks, good to hear!_

_Taeniaea:__ Thanks again:)_

_TsukiyoTenshi: __DONE! :P_

_Man of Faith:__ Just like you said, they did not want to risk to scare the Grangers. Still, it not in their character to outright lie, so I hope the compromise was acceptable._


	15. First training

**First training**

Sirius and James were watching the first training for Harry, Susan, Hermione and Neville. The Weasleys had also turned down the offer to join them.

Lily and Remus, with occasional input from Albus, had worked out something like a plan for the next four and a half years. Today, they were starting with some background in how magic actually worked. The other two marauders had quickly been excused for that class, but would start with quidditch training later today. They had all agreed that the kids would spend at least part of every Saturday on a fun activity. The marauders because they thought it was important for kids to have fun, and Lily because she was afraid otherwise they would lose interest. When Remus asked if she meant the kids or the marauders by that she had just smiled.

Still, right now the two of them could only wait while Lily and Remus were working through the boring theory. The kids seemed to be interested though, and especially Hermione's hand was in the air quite often. James wondered if Susan and Neville even knew what she meant by that gesture. He remembered how he himself had simply spoken up during his first classes at Hogwarts if he wanted to answer a question, only after a couple of days he learned that he had to put up his hand before speaking. At least Harry would not make that mistake, another advantage of attending a real school instead of homeschooling.

Slowly, the hours moved on. Sirius was telling James about his visit to Grimmauld Place. They had eventually forced Kreacher to release the real horcrux, and the deranged elf had told them how Sirius brother had turned against the dark lord. It was obvious that Sirius was a bit upset about learning all this, but it was also obvious that he had already discussed his troubles with Amelia. For a few seconds James felt a sting of jealousy that he was not the first person Sirius would fall back on anymore, but that was hardly fair. He had Lily after all.

Apparently the real horcrux was a locket that had once belonged to Slytherin. And after the headmaster had burned it to ashes with fiendfyre he had according to Sirius mumbled something about how this could lead to other horcruxes. But as usual Albus had been rather tightlipped about it all.

After the headmaster left Sirius had talked with Kreacher about Regulus. Although he was obviously grateful for the help that the elf had given his brother there was too much resentment between the two of them. And so he had offered the elf a chance to join another family. Of course, Kreacher had protested that he did not want to leave the Black family, but in the end he had agreed with Sirius that Narcissa Malfoy was still a Black.

Sirius had contacted the Malfoys, who immediately had offered to trade Kreacher for one of their own elves. After Sirius had agreed with the deal they had told him that their elf, Dobby, was a useless maniac. But according to Sirius Dobby was a rather enthusiastic and cheerful but weird elf. He actually was paying the house elf now, which was pretty much unheard of. Timmy had been shocked when he heard about it. Although he was somewhat mollified when Sirius explained that Dobby had talked him down to a salary of one galleon a week.

Eventually, at about three in the afternoon the four kids stood up and ran towards them. Or at least, Harry and Susan ran towards them, they had been excited all week about finally flying a real broom. Neville had, according to his parents, never been much of a flier. And Hermione simply looked anxious about the whole idea.

They all walked followed James and Sirius to the quidditch pitch. Although Hermione tried to stall by asking some questions about the two tall dragon statues that guarded the entrance. Remus patiently started to answer her questions, but by now the other three kids could not wait any longer and they pulled Sirius and James towards the six new Cleansweeps that already lay down on the field.

'All right kiddo's, why don't you show us what you can do?' Sirius grinned.

'But no flying until we say so.' James quickly added, Lily had warned him extensively about this. And although she had not followed them towards the pitch he was sure she would find out if he took any unnecessary risks.

Susan and Harry confidently stepped forward and both picked up a broom. But Neville walked next to one, held out his hand and called 'Up!'The broom slowly drifted upwards into his waiting hand. James had to smile; it was the official way to pick up a broom. But most fliers would soon get tired of it and just pick up their brooms by hand. He was not really surprised to see that both Harry and Susan held their brooms in exactly the right position.

But Neville's hands were way too close to his body. He nodded to Sirius, who picked up another broom and took Harry and Susan for some easy flying to get to know their brooms. Meanwhile James started explaining to Neville where he should put his hands and how he should position himself on the broom. After some five minutes he seemed to get it. Looking up he noticed that Remus and Hermione had finally joined them, although Hermione looked even more nervous now.

'Remus, why don't you take Neville up to the others while I talk Hermione through it?' James suggested.

'Sure.' Remus nodded before he turned to Hermione: 'Don't worry Hermione, James is one of the best fliers I know.' Hermione nodded as well, but she still looked very reluctant about it.

As soon as the other two were out of earshot James asked: 'Are you alright Hermione?'

Hermione shrugged before she softly whispered: 'I am not really fond of heights.'

'Oh.' Was James only reply at first. He was a bit surprised by her answer, maybe because he was so used to quidditch fanatics. Eventually he said: 'Well, we can start by flying very low. That way, it will not be that different from muggle kids who drive on those strange devices at school.'

Hermione looked at him in wonder before she asked: 'You mean bicycles?'

'Guess so.' James shrugged. 'Oh, and one other thing before we start.' He pulled his wand and summoned a rock from next to the pitch. It was a rather big one, but he could just catch it in his left hand. He turned to Hermione again: 'Watch this.' Then he threw the rock a few feet away, it gently bounced up and down a few times on the pitch before it stopped.

'That's odd.' Was all that Hermione had to say.

James grinned: 'There is a cushioning charm on the pitch. Lily made me do it when Harry got his first training broom.' He banished the rock away from the field again before he asked: 'So, ready to give it a try?'

'I guess so.' Was Hermione's doubtful reply, but at least she looked a bit less nervous by now.

'Good, just pick up one of those brooms then.' James said. She did, and he took some time to explain her how to hold it, how to sit on it and how to steer it. A few years ago Harry had been jumping up and down impatiently when he told him the same, he had wanted to fly, but Hermione carefully listened to every word he said.

After some twenty minutes he picked up a broom as well and said: 'Well, come on. Let's give it a try.' Soon enough they were flying some three feet above the field. Hermione was still rather stiff and nervous on her broom, until he finally managed to relax her a bit with a funny story about Lily's first flying lesson at Hogwarts. Then he ensured her that even Lily had become a rather good flier eventually and that seemed to bolster Hermione's confidence a bit.

Still, when he suggested to climb a bit higher the look she sent him was close to panic. After a few seconds she asked: 'Do we have to?'

James shrugged: 'Eventually, but if you want to practice a bit more we can keep flying like this for a while longer.'

Hermione nodded and watched the other three for a while. Harry and Susan were already doing some stunt maneuvers together with Sirius. James laughed and said: 'Do not mind them too much. Harry is a natural on a broom, and Amelia keeps informing me that Susan spends way too much of her time flying. She seems to think it's due to Sirius' bad influence.'

At the end of their first flying lesson he managed to let Hermione climb to about ten feet. Nothing special, but he guessed it was a big victory if you were afraid of heights. Still, he had to push down a smile when he brought Hermione home and the first thing she excitedly said to her parents was: 'I flew on a broom!'

_-Three weeks later-_

Once again James and Sirius were watching one of the more theoretical classes from the sideline. Although, this time, the kids would actually do something. After three Saturdays that were at least partly filled with general instructions and strict warnings about potion making Lily and Remus had decided that today the four kids would make their first potions.

After a long discussion they had settled on a simple potion that could cure boils. James could vaguely remember how he had made it during his first year as well. He had offered to help with the class of today, but Remus and Lily were sure they would manage it together.

They could of course use the time to work even more on their own training. But after five weekdays filled with training both marauders preferred a calm day. And so he was talking with Sirius again, although to be honest he had not really paid attention to his friend. He got the gist of Sirius' story though. Dobby, his new house elf, had cleaned all of Grimmauld Place. And tomorrow a small team of Goblin ward breakers would tear down all the magical protections on the house. Sirius was planning to sell it to muggles.

'Please tell me you do not do this just to irritate your mother's memory?' James grinned.

Sirius barked a laugh: 'Well, that is the most important part. But beside that, right now it is one of the best protected houses in all of England. I do not want to live there, but I want to make sure no former death eater is going to hide in it.

'Ah, that makes sense.' James nodded.

'Thought so.' Sirius agreed, before he changed the subject: 'So, when can we start teaching them some tricks?'

James shrugged: 'For now they want to focus on potions, arithmancy and runes. Oh, and in a week or three they will visit Longbottom manor for some herbology. You know how extensive their greenhouses are. In a year or two we will start with some basic magical exercises. But for now their magical cores are still rather unstable. I guess we just need patience.'

'And we can teach them quidditch in the meanwhile of course.' Sirius reasoned.

'And quidditch.' James heartily agreed.

_- Two months later –_

James cheered when Harry scored another goal. Today was their first real quidditch match. Or at least, something that looked like it. There were only two teams of two chasers, Harry and Neville against Susan and Hermione. Sirius was playing keeper, although he was not too good at it. As soon as one of the teams got the quaffle they had to retreat to a line in front of the goal and begin a new attack at Sirius' goals. The field was a bit too big to use both sides with only two chasers in each team.

James had wanted to add beaters, but Lily had simply forbidden that. And so, James and Lily were playing seeker. Although both of them spent most of their time and attention watching the kids and cheering at every goal they made. James had to grin every time he realized how much Hermione and Neville had improved during the last three months. In James opinion, Harry was still by far the best flier. And Susan also was a lot better than the other two, but they were getting along reasonably well. At least Hermione had lost most of her fear of heights, although she was unlikely to try and copy some of Harry's more crazy stunts.

Speaking of crazy stunts; Lily was suddenly diving downwards. James did not see the snitch yet, but with a burst of speed he rocketed his broom past Lily, only to see her quickly turning backwards just after he passed her. Cursing he pulled on his broom and with half a looping he once again tried to catch up with her, hanging down from his own broom. He managed to roll over to the upper side of the broom at the moment he shot over his wife, but he had still not spotted the snitch. Still, Lily kept on going in the same direction and frantically he looked around. Suddenly he saw the snitch hiding near one of the goalposts and he pushed even more speed out of his broom diving towards it.

Seconds later he grabbed the elusive golden ball and cheered. Moments later his son was flying next to him, still on full speed: 'Nice one dad! But you should have gotten it earlier, I saw it twice.'

James frowned, he had not been _that_ inattentive, but then he grinned: 'Maybe we should make you a seeker then Harry.'

Harry just grinned back at him.

_A/N: So, the training has started… Not too advanced yet, and since I am still working from James' viewpoint the focus is mainly on quidditch;) I hope to reach Hogwarts with a couple more chapters… four or five should do it._

_On a totally unrelated side note, yesterday I signed a contract for my first actual book :D It will be in Dutch of course, since my English writing is in my opinion not good enough to actually write a book and ask money for it;) So, right now I am telling that bit of news to everybody who stands still long enough to hear it…_

_Anyway, on to the reviews again. Thirteen this time, I guess that means bad luck?_

_Happylady:__ Yeah, the Malfoys dark background did not really earn them a high place on the Potters social contact list. Although Sirius just traded an elf with them;) As to the Weasley's and Lovegoods, I guess we'll see soon enough._

_Fix needed:__ Thanks, edited it. And I even remembered it during this chapter :D_

_Man of Faith:__ I guess so far the Dumbledore in my story is not really manipulative so far, although he is starting to irritate the others by keeping his information close to himself. Maybe that manipulative side of him will show up later… _

_TsukiyoTenshi:__ Sadly, it seems most parents do not allow their kids to actually attend those training sessions. But at least they will have some good friends._

_RRW:__ She can be frustrating yeah, but I guess that is part of what makes her a good character/ mother._

_Teufel1987:__ I meant the Harry and friends from canon. I was browsing through the first book to check a few things for one of my future chapters just after receiving your review and noticed a few 'soccers'. Not that it really matters, I'll use football if it shows up again._

_And you are right about that last paragraph of course. Not quite sure what happened there. I guess I made a mistake while copy pasting from my text editor to word (fanfiction does not accept the files my original text editor uses), but not sure how I managed to add that part… Anyway, it's gone now._

_Debate4life:__ Yup, you are right of course. See above;) But thanks for pointing it out._

_ILikeComps:__ Not quite sure what you mean by 'poopooing it' ;) But I guess it is a good sign that my story resembles real life sometimes._

_Bensdad:__ Thanks! And once again, thanks for pointing out that last paragraph._

_Jekl:__ Thanks, always nice to hear:)_

_Taeniaea:__ Thanks again:)_

_Schnookums:__ I can hardly answer that question without giving away spoilers. Sorry;) Guess you will just have to keep reading._

_MAFITA:__ Well, there you go. They found it, although it happened off-screen. But I figured it would hardly be interesting to have me describe Grimmauld Place and Kreachers story again;) It's not like there was a whole new development waiting to happen there due to my time altering efforts._


	16. A stone and a ring

**A stone and a ring**

It was an early Wednesday morning and James had just dropped Harry a few streets from his school. Now that he was nine and just starting his third year of junior school he insisted that he could walk to the school yard on his own. Of course, James had followed him in his invisibility cloak anyway. He was quite sure that Harry would remember to watch out for traffic and all that, but he would wait until Harry reached the protective wards around the school yard before apparating back home. The kid would stand no chance against death eaters, and enough of them were still roaming around. Including their own old friend, Peter Pettigrew.

When he apparated back to Lionfire Hall he found Lily and Remus talking with Albus, who had apparently just arrived by floo. As soon as he walked up to them Lily turned towards him and explained: 'Albus thinks he has found another horcrux.'

James turned to the headmaster, who grimaced: 'Well, in fact I believe I found a place that is likely to guard another horcrux. And since I promised that I would ask for backup this time…'

James nodded: 'Great, let's go.'

Remus chuckled while Lily protested: 'But we do not have a plan yet.'

'Do we need one?' James wondered, 'I say we head over there, look around a bit and see how far we can get. I mean, it is not like we can plan that much without knowing what we are facing. Unless Albus already does know that of course?'

Albus slowly shook his head: 'No, I believe you are right James. We should just explore the area, and if at all possible we try and finish the job today. If not, we will retreat and work out how to do it.'

'Right.' James agreed, before he turned thoughtful: 'Where are we going anyway?'

Now Remus was laughing outright, but Albus only chuckled: 'To the place where Voldemort's mother grew up.'

'Oh, he had a mother?' James asked, rather dumbly.

'Yes.' The headmaster seriously replied, 'Although she died at childbirth. Still, a long time ago Voldemort was a rather normal young man called Tom Riddle.'

James and the others nodded. It made sense that Voldemort was not born as an evil inhuman dark lord, but somehow it was a bit strange to imagine him as a toddler in diapers. Before anyone else could comment on the subject Albus presented them with a small length of rope. They all touched it and the familiar tug of portkey travel took them away.

Seconds later they appeared in front of a ruined stone shack. Every single window was broken and wooden beams pointed in different directions from the roof. The wooden door was only supported by one hinge. All around the building grass and other weeds were growing over three feet high, and surrounding it all was a large hedge.

'Doesn't look like much.' Remus drily commented.

Albus nodded: 'The Gaunts lived in poverty for a long time. And it has been left alone for many years by now.'

'The Gaunts?' James wondered, 'They were rather influential until a few centuries ago… Strange to see how far they slipped.' Then he blinked, 'You mean to say Voldemort is a Gaunt?'

'His mother was Merope Gaunt. So yes, his blood is part Gaunt, and by that line directly descends from Slytherin.' Albus calmly replied, 'But I hardly think he ever considered himself a Gaunt. As I said, his mother died shortly after he was born. And I believe the only encounter he ever had with the Gaunts was hardly a happy occassion.'

James nodded, although he wondered how Dumbledore could know about that. Suddenly Remus waved his wand around and said: 'I smell snakes. Lots of them. Or a few really big ones I guess.'

'That makes sense. The Gaunts were renowned for their parseltongue abilities.' James nodded while casting a simple ward that should keep the snakes away from them.

'It does not sound like a good idea to march through these high grasses with snakes around.' Lily commented.

'I quite agree.' Albus nodded, before he circled his wand around and pointed it towards the door. Suddenly a huge beam of flames erupted from it and quickly burned a five feet wide path towards the door. Seconds later two thin walls of flames erupted at both sides of the path. Somehow, they did not burn the grass next to it.

'That should work.'Remus commented, and judging from his tone he was just as impressed as James felt by that careless show of magic.

They quickly walked towards the door, James was quite sure that every now and then he saw movement behind the thin fiery walls. Once in front of the building Albus started waving his wand around in slow circles while muttering long Latin words. Seconds later both Lily and Remus joined him. James just shrugged and created another anti-snake ward.

He quickly grew bored while the other three searched for magical defences. For a while he tried to see if there were any mechanical traps around the doorway, not that he really expected Voldemort to even think about 'muggle tricks' like that. But it would not hurt checking. Soon he gave up, he had to admit he had no idea what he was supposed to be looking for anyway.

Seconds later he heard several loud cracks from inside the building. They came in quick succession, after some thirty seconds the silence returned again. Remus was the first to break it: 'That should take care of that.'

'Yes, but we should be careful anyway.' Albus replied, to which Lily nodded.

'Very well, I'll go first.' Remus simply replied before opening the door. He carefully moved in a few steps before he suddenly turned and walked outside again muttering: 'I forgot, I have to go and see Sirius today.'

The other three all looked at him in surprise until Lily asked: 'Remus?'

Remus stopped and slowly turned around before he asked: 'What was that? What are we doing here again?'

They all frowned but before any of them could reply Remus eyes widened and he whispered: 'The horcrux, how could I forget?'

'Very strange indeed.' Albus agreed before pointing his wand inside the building. After a short while he said: 'It seems we missed a sort of anti-wizard ward. It is well hidden, and in a very odd style… Fascinating.'

'Can you disable it?' James asked, he felt this was not really the time to extensively study a ward.

'Of course.' The headmaster nodded, and after a quick jab with his wand he walked inside the building. On the inside the shack looked just as ramshackle as on the outside. They carefully moved forward, leaving tracks in the thick layer of dust with every step they made.

Surprisingly, nothing else happened. Most likely they had found and disabled all other magical defences. After a short while Albus suddenly pointed to the floor: 'There it is.'

They all looked at an empty spot of floor. 'You mean below those planks?' Remus asked. Albus nodded and Remus quickly conjured a crowbar and set to work. Within seconds he had ripped away five of the planks and he stepped back to reveal a golden box that had been hidden until now.

For a few seconds everybody just looked at the box. Then the lid suddenly jumped open. 'That's odd.' Albus mumbled while dropping his wand. Next he reached into the box and moved some kind of item towards his other hand.

'What are you doing?' Remus shouted while forcefully pulling Albus' arm away. A small item flew out of his outstretched arm and richocheted against two wals before it dropped on the floor. Curious, James stood up and walked towards it. It looked like a ring with an odd black stone on it, then Lily shouted: 'Stop James! There is some kind of a compulsion charm on it.'

It took some effort to turn away from the ring. Only when his eyes finally focused on Lily did he start to wonder why on earth he was just walking towards it. He shook his head a few times while Lily performed a long countercurse. As soon as she was finished she turned to the headmaster: 'I am a bit surprised that you could not resist it Albus.'

'It was a strong charm.' Albus slowly replied, 'And it was so tempting when I finally saw it.'

'Saw what?' Remus asked.

'The stone! I've looked for it for many years when I was younger.' Albus replied, 'Of course, by now I know I should not use it. But when I suddenly saw it right in front of me the temptation was too strong.'

James blinked a few times before he looked at the ring again. The stone was rather big to adorn a ring, but he did not see anything special about it. Then Albus continued: 'It is the fabled resurrection stone.'

They all looked at him in surprise. Then Remus walked towards the ring and quickly pocketed it before he said: 'Let's discuss this at home.'

A few minutes later they were all seated in the comfortable leather seats of Lionfire Halls sitting room. Timmy had offered each of them a firewhiskey. After a few sips Lily asked: 'So, you are saying that this is no horcrux but a hallow instead?'

Albus shook his head: 'No, I am afraid that Voldemort simply used the ring as a horcrux. I hope, and think, that he does not know about the deathly hallows.'

'Just coincidence then? That seems almost too good to be true.' James commented, both the horcruxes and the hallows were very important in their quest to destroy Voldemort. And it seemed almost suspicious that this small item consisted one of each.

'Luck favours the bold. You should know that James.' Remus chuckled, throwing the Potter family words at James' feet. He just grinned back to his friend, somehow, he did not believe those words applied to important things like this. But he should not complain too much.

'Can we destroy the horcrux without destroying the stone?' Lily wondered, 'After all, Harry will need it later on.'

'I believe we can.' Albus calmly replied, then he held out his hand to Remus: 'Can I see it?'

Remus handed it over, although he stayed close to the headmaster. Obviously he was worried that Albus would try to put the ring on his finger again. But Albus only turned it over a few times before pointing his wand at it. A blue beam of energy shot at the ring and suddenly the stone seemed to jump away from it. A second later a small tinkling noise sounded and Albus looked at his hand in surprise before he said: 'Two small needles dropped out of the ring.'

Remus looked carefully before he kneeled down and actually sniffed the air just above Albus' hand. It looked rather weird, but Remus sounded very serious when he stood up and said: 'Both are poisoned, it is a good thing that I stopped you from putting on that ring.'

Albus grimaced: 'Quite so.' Then he waved his wand again and the needles dissapeared. He looked up again and said: 'Well, at least we have the stone now. Although I believe it would be wise if I kept it for a while until Harry is a bit older. He is still too young to use such a mighty artifact.'

'No.' Lily protested, and when Albus looked at her in surprise she continued: 'It would make much more sense if James and I kept it. That way, if everything goes wrong he will simply inherit it from us.'

For a few seconds it looked like the headmaster wanted to argue the case. But eventually he handed the stone to Lily. Strange enough he seemed almost relieved to let it go.

James decided to change the subject: 'So, we got two horcruxes now. That means we only have four left if I remember William's viewing correctly.'

'Quite so.' Albus agreed, 'Although of course we do not know if Voldemort has already made those other four horcruxes or if he still has one or two to make after his resurrection.'

'Do you have any ideas about the other horcruxes?' Lily wondered, 'Well, beside the snake obviously. William already told us about it.'

'Ideas… Yes, but no answers so far.' Albus vaguely replied, then he gazed at the ring in his hand again: 'But I think I might have an idea.'

They all knew it was useless to try and pull more information out of the headmaster. So instead James said: 'Well, at least we have all hallows ready and waiting for Harry.'

Albus chuckled: 'There is still the small obstacle that the Elder Wand can not be given away. Harry will need to defeat me first.'

James nodded. He had more than enough faith in his son and his talents. But somehow he did not see him defeating Albus Dumbledore anytime soon. Sirius and James were the best fighters out of their own little training group, and a while ago Albus had held both of them at bay without breaking a sweat. Of course, a well performed sneak attack could be the answer to that. But he could hardly forwarn the headmaster about that.

Albus continued: 'How are Harry and the others doing in their training anyway?'

'Great!' Lily smiled: 'They are really learning a lot about potions, runes and arithmancy. Although especially in that last subject we have to stick to the basics for now. And Frank and Alice took them to the Longbottom greenhouses a few times.'

'We are going to start with some basic magical training soon.' James proudly added. He was really looking forward to that.

Albus' eyes twinkled: 'I am really looking forward to see them enter Hogwarts. Especially ms. Granger will be interesting. She will be the first muggleborn to be this well prepared.'

Lily wanted to comment to that, but a bell chimed and she suddenly stood up: 'I should go pick up Harry. His classes are almost done. See you later Albus.'

Albus nodded in reply. They talked for a bit longer, but Albus went back to Hogwarts before Lily and Harry returned home.

_A/N: A bit of an 'in-between' chapter, but those things have to happen as well;) _

_I got a lot of questions about the book deal, some in reviews, some in my mailbox. I guess I can hardly keep talking about it in my author notes, but if some of you really are interested just send me a private message with your email adress and I'll try to keep you updated. Of course, an English edition might take a while, but at least I would be able to tell my publisher about you guys;)_

_So, back to reviews again. __16 this time:)_

_TsukiyoTenshi:__ Dobby is with the Blacks in fact. But at least, he's away from the Malfoys. Which is the important part I guess. Thanks for reviewing again._

_Stonegnome1:__ Hmm, I actually thought canon Hermione was afraid of heights. But I can't really find any proof of that. Maybe I read too many fanfics?;) I'll have to think about adding Madam Longbottom to the 'teachers', it makes sense though, so thanks for the suggestion. _

_My flawed design:__ The Weasley's are less important here then they were in canon at least. I think some of the younger kids will show up sooner or later, but now that Harry already has friends and a family they will be less important. Well, unless he falls head over heels for Ginny of course;)_

_Bensdad:__ Thanks, and we're getting closer to Hogwarts._

_Happylady:__ Yeah, it would not make sense if Dumbledore suddenly was very open about his methods. But James and the others do not have to like that;)_

_Stonegnome1 (ch 14):__ Somehow I never really joined in the view that Molly and her family are really ambitious. Well, beside Percy obviously. But all the other Weasley's seem to have chosen jobs that they liked instead of prestigious jobs. Of course, in canon Molly likes the idea of Harry and Ginny. But then in my story there is not really a 'boy-who-lived', most people think James and Lily somehow stopped Voldemort. Thanks for the suggestions once again, I'll try and edit them later today or tomorrow._

_ILikeComps:__ Yeah, a class with only four pupils helps a lot for that I guess;) I think all four of the kids will change a lot from how they were in canon. After all, Harry's childhood is very different as well now. Although I admit that I have no clue about Susan's canon youth._

_Taeniaea: __Thanks. On a side note, does your name mean anything? I have to keep looking back to see if I spell it correctly, maybe if I know the meaning it will be easier to remember;)_

_Dustbunnyqueen:__ Thanks, and I can only hope:D_

_Teufel1987:__ Well, I can remember one of my ground school teachers talking about electricity. He had this big wooden plank filled with wires and little lamps. I guess Lily and Remus need to think of things like that as well for now._

_Oh, and you should definitely learn Dutch ;)_

_RRW:__ Hmm, I believe James would have to try really hard to make Hermione forget about her books… But you never know._

_MAFITA:__ Fred and George will be devastated when they find out they could have taken classes from the marauders;) _

_M.J.L.337:__ As I said in the a/n, just send me your email address if you are interested. I hardly think will appreciate it if I actively keep you all informed about the process;)_

_Schnookums:__ But what would be the fun in reading then?;) And thanks of course._

_JTalley:_ _Thanks, good to hear. As to your questions:  
1. To be honest I am not quite sure yet about Luna. It will become clear soon though.  
2. Not really a question I think? But nice to read anyway.  
3. As I said before, I am not going to answer the pairing question yet;) Besides that, a lot of things still can happen before Harry finally starts to notice girls._

_Sweetgirl23:__ Most likely there will be quite a few chapters from Harry's point of view during the Hogwarts years. After all, I can hardly have James running around the castle in his invisibility cloak all the time just to make sure I do not miss anything interesting;) _


	17. Magical training

**Magical training**

James had to push down a wide grin when he saw the excited expression on the children's faces. Today was their first lesson in 'real' magic. He could only hope that they would not be too disappointed at the end of the day. It would be a slow start.

Sirius started, as they had agreed: 'Okay kiddo's. Now that those two squirts,' He pointed at Neville and Harry, both of them looked ready to object, but Sirius continued: 'finally had their ninth birthday we can start with some basic magical training.'

'Do not expect anything too flashy.' James warned them, 'Basically, we will teach you how to control your own magic. I know all of you had your fair share of accidental magic, and to be honest it will continue until you get your wands. But at least we can teach you how to do some basic tricks without a wand.'

Hermione's hand shot in the air. They had been trying to explain to her that it was not really necessary with such a small group. But although the bushy haired girl learned everything else at lightning speed she seemed to refuse to learn this. He nodded to her and she asked: 'But according to some of the books you gave us spells can only be performed with a wand?'

James shrugged: 'They are partly right.' He pulled his wand out of his arm holster and pointed towards an empty chair: 'Locomotor chair.' The chair made three quick pirouettes before it stopped moving again. 'I cannot do the same without a wand. Basically the wand gives a lot of control and makes it easier to do things like this. Here, this is the best what I can do without a wand.' He concentrated for a few seconds before aiming a burst of magic towards the chair. It made one slow and wobbly pirouette before it toppled over and stopped moving.

'What James forgets to mention is that his wandless powers are actually quite good.' Sirius added, 'Still, there are some nice tricks we will try and teach you eventually. Like wandlessly summoning small items to you.'

'Like wands?' Harry immediately suggested.

Sirius laughed and James replied: 'Exactly. However, for now we are just going to work on your control. Most likely you will only be able to learn a few minor tricks before Hogwarts. For example, at my tenth birthday I really irritated my parents by changing the color of their clothing all the time.'

They all smiled at this. Sirius took over again: 'We are going to learn you two ways of practicing your inner magic. Both are basic practices for two rather strange bits of magic. But they will also really help during your normal classes. Besides that, we will teach you some minor wandless magic.'

'What strange bits of magic?' Susan wanted to know.

'Well, the first set will prepare you for occlumency.' Sirius replied. He received three confused looks on that, but Hermione looked thoughtful and mumbled: 'I read that word somewhere.' Sirius grinned and said: 'It is the art of defending the mind from external magical attacks.'

Three faces still looked confused, but Hermione tried: 'You mean like mind readers?'

Sirius hesitated, he had never been much of a legilimens himself, so James took over. Not that he was any good at it, but still. 'No, a wizard who knows legilimency, which is the art of attacking another person's mind, is able to feel emotions or study memories of his target. There is no way to read someone's actual thoughts. But if you are any good at it you will start to realize when someone is lying for example.'

The kids all nodded, although he had the feeling they did not really understand it yet. Not that it really mattered, all that was important was that they would learn a lot of control with the practices involved. Besides that, James and the other adults had agreed it would be a good thing if Harry knew occlumency before learning about the prophecy. With some luck he would be able to at least detect attempts of legilimency before he started Hogwarts.

'If everything works out you should at least have some basic skills in this kind of magic before starting at Hogwarts.' Sirius concluded.

James nodded, the kids looked rather unimpressed though. It was not really a spectacular kind of magic after all. He just grinned at them: 'I am afraid the other trainings will only finish somewhere in your third or fourth year at Hogwarts. There is no way that any of you will have enough power and experience to reach the final step of that path before you are at least fourteen.'

They all looked at him, the question clearly visible in their eyes and he grinned again before saying: 'We are going to teach you how to be animagi.'

For a few moments there was a surprised silence. Then all the four kids started shouting about what kind of animal they wanted to become. When they finally quieted down again James said: 'I am afraid that you cannot just pick an animal. Instead, you will have to find and accept your inner animal.'

'Can we start with the animagus training today?' Harry asked, obviously still excited by the very idea.

James and Sirius looked at each other, they had planned some occlumency practices for today. But when James shrugged Sirius said: 'Sure, why not. But remember that it will take a very long time. James and I needed three years, and we were a few years older and had more experience with magic.'

The kids all nodded eagerly and James took over again: 'Good. There are two important parts in animagus training. First, you will need to learn how to meditate. It will help you in finding and controlling your inner animal. Besides that, it also is important for occlumency. Second, you will need to learn how to visualize things. It is not enough to know what animal you will be, you also need to really know all about how its body would look, function and feel. That is one of the most important things in transfiguration in general by the way. It is not enough to know the wand movement and the spell, you also have to create a good image in your mind of what you want to achieve.'

Sirius stood up and said: 'Come over here.' He conjured a few pillows and said: 'Each of you should take a pillow and sit down.' As soon as all the kids were seated he continued: 'Now, we are going to start with some stretches. Just follow my lead.'

James smiled when he saw the kids moving their arms around. They were all smiling and giggling a lot about it. Of course, Sirius and he had been the same when they started with those practices long ago. Still, after a few more Saturdays they would get the hang of it.

A few hours later James and Sirius were talking about accidental magic with the kids. They were trying to work out if the kids actually felt their magic at work when they did something. James was particularly interested in Harry's answers. Not just because he was his son, but also because he remembered how Harry had one time consciously cancelled the blue color of his teachers wig.

However, all the kids said they never noticed anything special. It was too be expected, after all, what kid would stop and study what they felt when suddenly something weird happened. With some luck and a lot of effort on the next few Saturdays they would soon be able to feel their own magic though.

After a while he noticed how the kids were getting tired of it. He looked at the clock and saw that it was almost time for Dumbledore's monthly visit. So he suggested: 'Why don't you guys go play some quidditch?'

This idea was greeted by loud cheers and second later the kids had left the room on a run. Sirius looked at the door and asked: 'I guess we cannot join them?'

James shook his head: 'I am afraid we will have to listen to the headmaster babbling about how difficult it is to find more horcruxes.'

Sirius grinned: 'Lily is rubbing off on you I see.'

He just shrugged: 'You have to admit that it is annoying. I mean, I can understand that it is hard to find those things. But do we really have to spend one to two hours every month to learn that nothing really happened?' Pretty much all he had learned after finding the last horcrux was that Voldemorts old orphanage did not hide one. Actually it had burned down long ago. James had felt rather unsettled when he learned that it was the same fire in which his uncle Kevan lost his life. He wondered if it was another reason to hate Voldemort or if it was an actual accident. Not that he needed any more reasons to hate Voldemort of course.

Sirius also shrugged before he replied: 'I did not say I liked it. But I guess if we want him to help us we have to endure it.'

James grinned: 'Surprisingly mature. Is that Amelia rubbing off on you?'

With a huff Sirius replied: 'For that insult, I challenge you to a duel. Rictumsempra!'

Soon enough both of them were running through the room in old marauder tradition. Tickling charms and insults where flying through the room until Lily showed up and commented: 'And here I thought you were teaching the kids how to use magic.'

'We did!' Sirius protested, James used his friends short distraction to hit him in the face with another tickling charm. While Sirius collapsed in laughter James took over: 'We actually got them started on meditation and talked about accidental magic for a while. But they obviously got bored so we sent them towards the quidditch pitch some fifteen minutes ago.'

Lily nodded and smiled: 'I remember that from our first classes. They will start to enjoy your lessons more when they actually can do something.' Then she frowned: 'Anyway, Albus just arrived.'

'Better not keep old greybeard waiting too long.' Sirius commented when standing up, then he suddenly turned to James and bellowed: 'Rictumsempra!' But James easily dodged it and grinned: 'Now is not the time Sirius, the bearded god of lemon drops is here to share his infinite wisdom with us.'

Lily softly laughed: 'If Albus ever reinstates the order of the phoenix we should join as well. I am really curious to see how some of the elder members will react on you two ridiculing Albus.'

James pocketed his wand which signaled the end of their impromptu marauders duel while he replied: 'I am sure Albus would be pleased if I called him the bearded gods of lemon drops. But anyway, let's see what he has to say this time.'

Sure enough, some two hours later they had learned nothing new. In fact, they had spent most of their time talking about how the kids were doing. And while James always enjoyed that, he felt it would have been even more fun to just join the kids on the quidditch field.

_A/N: And here we go again. Bit of a short chapter, and also delayed, but I had a nasty fever for the last few days. So this is the best I could make of it;) Anyway, I was planning to publish two more chapters next week which should get them to the summer before Hogwarts. I hope I will still be able to make that, since next Saturday I'm leaving for a vacation to Canada for three weeks. So there will be no updates for a while:/ For me, it would make sense to have that break just before Hogwarts._

_Thirteen reviews this time. Unlucky once again:)_

_Johnjohn: __Thanks, always nice to hear._

_Happylady:__ Yeah, they are only nine so far. I guess those pairings are possible, although there is always the dreaded 'friend zone' ;)_

_TsukiyoTenshi:__ Done!_

_My flawed design:__ Well, so far Harry doesn't even know her, so keep your fingers crossed;) What is so bad about Ginny? _

_Taeniaea:__ Thanks!_

_ILikeComps:__ Yeah, I try to stick to canon in little details like that. After all, there is no reason why it would be any easier for him this time around._

_Willtrytowriteforfreebooks:__ So, three replies:  
1. You are welcome.  
2. That could still happen I guess. For now, they are only nine though.  
3. Basically because when I used the 'reply to review' button other people would send me messages asking me what I replied to other reviews… This seemed easier;) But I admit I never really expected this amount of reviews… I told myself I should think of a new system if I start to get more than twenty reviews on a regular basis._

_Stonegnome1:__ I guess they get a bit overconfident when pretty much everything can be healed in five seconds by a spell. I will edit your suggestion once again, thanks!_

_Chandra4u:__ Thanks!_

_RRW:__ I think canon-Albus also realized soon enough that he should not keep the stone for himself. Now he had an easy excuse to get rid of it;)_

_MAFITA:__ Dumbledore burned the locket with Fiendyfire. I did not describe it in the chapter, but I guess he will do the same with the ring. It is a good thing that he has a bit more control than Goyle;)_

_Zawisza:__ Too bad, but good luck in your story hunt. I keep wondering how others would implement the idea though…_

_Sasparilla89:__ That would make Pettigrew the master of the elder wand… Although I guess Harry would have an easier time claiming it from him. _


	18. Muggle training

**Muggle training**

For a chance, James was trying to actually do some research. Harry's magical power was growing a bit too fast during their practice sessions. He had tried not to show his surprise towards the kids and most likely he had only managed that because the other three were also steadily progressing in their own strength. Still, where Neville, Hermione and Susan were undoubtedly showing a lot of promise with their gradual growth, Harry every now and then felt the need to just _jump_ to a whole new level, bypassing any known magical core growth model. It was somewhat discomforting to see your own son ignoring all known facts about magic.

Sirius and James had of course discussed it with Remus and Lily. And they had all agreed it was most likely a good thing. Still, they wanted to know what was the cause of Harry's odd development. Lily had argued against asking the headmaster, since he was often trying to keep information hidden from them as well. They had agreed, but the downside was that both James and Sirius were now browsing through the more obscure books of their ancestral libraries. Or at least, he hoped that Sirius was doing the same at the moment. Somehow, he was afraid that his fellow marauder was just watching quidditch somewhere while James looked for the answer.

He was startled from his thoughts when the door to the library slammed open and Lily came running in. Tears were freely streaming down her face. Surprised, he stood up and immediately she jumped towards him and flung her arms around his back while laying her head against his chest.

'Lily? What is wrong?' James asked while trying not to get pulled into Lily's state of panic.

Lily kept sniffing for a while before she mumbled: 'We failed!'

He felt a huge hand crushing his heart when he asked: 'What? Something happened to Harry?' But Lily quickly shook her head: 'No. Harry's fine.' The hand suddenly disappeared again, 'But…' And she unwrapped one of her arms and handed him a piece of paper that he had not noticed until now. He owlishly blinked a few times before he realized it was an invitation for the funeral of Tenobia Lovegood.

He felt a pang of regret when he noticed her age, she had only been three years older than him. And the few times that he had met her she had seemed very lively. But still he could not help but worry about his own wife first: 'How can you say this is our fault?'

She looked up at him with tearstained eyes: 'We should have gone talk with the Lovegoods when they returned from their expedition… But we were too focused on our own four by then… I am sure things would have been different now if we had.'

'You cannot know that.' James argued, 'Beside that, William never mentioned anything about Tenobia. It is not our job to save everybody Lily. We just do the best we can with the information we have.'

After a few more sniffs Lily finally nodded: 'You are right of course. But that poor girl. She is only nine and already lost her mother.'

James nodded in return. Even though it was not their fault it was hardly fair for such a young girl. Maybe they could try and help her somehow, although most likely her own family would stick together very closely for the next year or so.

_- Three days later –_

James frowned while he looked around. It always bothered him how the receptions after funerals soon turned into a kind of a reunion. Of course, there was a small sad group centered around Xenophilius and his daughter, but the wider circle of guests was happily chatting with each other.

He guessed there was enough to talk about after the odd funeral. Between the archaic druidic rites and Xeno's strange but emotional poem it had been a rather strange event. But still he felt it would be better if people just used the time to mourn Tenobia. Although he was sure many of the others had hardly knew her and were invited as old friends or allies of the Lovegoods. Just like him and Lily in fact. Tenobia had been a fourth year Ravenclaw when the two of them started at Hogwarts, so they had barely met her during their own study. All that James really remembered of the older girl was that she never really seemed to care if the marauders pranked her. She would just look at her transfigured clothing for a while, then shrug and move on.

But maybe it was a good thing that most guests seemed to move on so quick. It gave the people that actually knew Tenobia some distraction. And judging by the tears that were clearly visible in Molly Weasley's eyes when she and her husband joined the two Potters at their table they at least could use it.

After they exchanged condolences and listened to some short stories from Molly about her former neighbor Arthur was actually the first to change the subject: 'So James, how are things with that training program you two were planning for Harry?'

'Great.' James smiled, 'Harry and the others are really making a lot of progress.'

Arthur smiled back at him: 'It sounded really interesting. But we felt it would be better to keep our own children learning together. To be quite honest, we did not want to let Fred and George loose on another household.'

'A wise decision, judging by the amount of Hogwarts letters we received this year.' Molly mumbled just loud enough to be heard.

Lily smiled and James grinned: 'Wait, they are pranksters as well?'

'Yes, another reason was that we did not think it a good idea to see them tutored by the marauders.' Arthur drily added, which only widened James grin.

'We're trying to give the kids a broad training. But so far there has not been any pranking classes.' Lily replied, and when she saw the look on James' face at her last words she quickly added: 'And there won't be.'

James pouted, but of course he had to agree. Some things were even more important than pranks. Still, it was good to hear that there were some prankers at Hogwarts right now. Molly smiled at the little discussion and she asked: 'Who were the other kids involved again?'

'Susan Bones, Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger.' Lily answered.

Arthur had nodded at the first two names but at Hermione's name he frowned: 'Granger?'

'She is a muggleborn.' Lily explained.

Arthurs eyes widened and he almost cheered: 'You got a muggleborn witch involved? That's great! What do her parents think of it? And how does she do compared to the others? And…' He stopped firing questions and his ear tips turned red when he noticed he was rambling a bit.

James just grinned again. Arthur was most likely the only pureblood in the ministry who would react this way. He could only respect the man for his stubborn refusal to align to the more common view. 'She is doing great actually. Scarily smart too. Oh, and next week her parents are coming over for some kind of muggle training that they discussed with Lily. She won't tell me what it is going to be though.'

Arthurs total face lighted up: 'Muggle training?'

Lily smiled: 'If you want you can come over as well. I am sure your kids will enjoy this.'

It looked like Molly wanted to object, but before she could even open her mouth Arthur had enthusiastically accepted Lily's invitation. The rest of the reception she had to continuously avoid all his questions about what the 'muggle training' could possibly be. But all that Lily said was that the kids should wear old clothes.

_- nine days later –_

It was a rather shabby looking group of kids dressed in their old clothes that was waiting at the quidditch pitch. Harry and the others had been very excited at starting a Saturday at the pitch. Normally, they only arrived here after their classes. But according to Remus they had been a bit let down when they found all kind of obstacles on the pitch. Still, the four of them had quickly befriended the two youngest Weasley's, Ron and Ginny, and were now running all across the field, checking out the obstacles and loudly debating their purpose. Remus had let them under Padfoots watchful eyes and had returned to the manor where James and Arthur waiting for Lily and Hermione´s parents. Most likely he was dying to find out what the two dentists had planned. Just like James himself. Arthur was simply excited to meet muggles.

After some five minutes Lily and the Grangers finally appeared inside the room. They were accompanied by a large pile of large carton boxes. After some greetings Jack put a few boxes aside while saying: 'The board games are for later. We brought Risk, Clue, Monopoly and a few other classics. We should take the other boxes to that quidditch field of you. But those dark grey ones are rather heavy.'

James simply casted a featherweight charm on one of the dark grey boxes before easily lifting it. Remus did not even need magical help, he just picked up the other one. Stupid werewolf strength. It soon became clear that the Grangers were not going to explain anything to them. So they just marched towards the pitch, where the kids and Padfoot quickly joined them. Padfoot actually was friendly enough to turn back into his human form and greet the Grangers.

Jack grinned at the semi circle of attentive kids and grownups that formed around him and his wife. Very slowly he pulled an odd device out of one of the boxes. Everybody just looked confused at the odd thing, it consisted out of a long clear tube filled with small pink balls that was built on a strange plastic rod. Over that rod was another square piece of plastic and at one end it had a few handgrips. Hermione was the only one who knew what was going on and she was obviously happy about it.

With a smile at his daughter Jack explained: 'We thought we would have some fun with those babies today. This is a rather old fashioned paintball gun.'

'A gun? Aren't they dangerous?' Arthur asked, the worry quite obvious in his voice.

Edna took over: 'Guns are dangerous yes. But those ones are more like toys. Why don't you show them what they can do Jack?'

'With pleasure.' Jack grinned, then he turned towards one of the obstacles, a blue one, he aimed the gun in that direction and did something with his fingers. One of the small pink balls flew out of the gun and smashed into the blue obstacle, creating a nice big pink spot. All the kids and the marauders cheered at that.

With a bow Jack turned back at his audience again and he quickly explained how to shoot with the gun. Apparently it was simple enough, just pull some kind of trigger with your finger while aiming at the right direction. Then reload the thing by pulling back the square piece of plastic before shooting again.

When Jack finished Edna took over again, she had pulled some large plastic safety goggles out of the box in front of her: 'Those balls can hurt when they hit you. So you will be wearing one of those goggles all the time while in the field. I know they are uncomfortable, but those balls can easily remove an eye. So if I see anyone removing it while still inside the field he or she will be banned from the rest of the games. Is that clear?' All the kids nodded at her strict tone. She continued: 'Beside that, if you got shot you raise your hands in the air and walk back to me. Lily will create some kind of shield between me and the field, right?' Lily confirmed that and Edna finished her warnings: 'If I see anyone deliberately shooting at someone who already raised his hands there will be hell to pay.'

Edna seemed satisfied with how the kids replied to her warnings. So Jack took over again: 'So, now we just have to make teams. Since there are six kids-'

'Seven!' The voices of James, Sirius and surprisingly Arthur all interrupted Jack at the same time. Arthur looked positively giddy at the idea of doing something muggle and the other two thought it would be great fun.

'Ten.' Remus drily added.

'Eleven.' Lily kept on counting.

Jack and Edna looked at each other before Edna said: 'You go. I'll play referee.'

Jack cheered and Edna started to randomly assemble some teams. James ended up with Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom and the yellow ammunition.

After a very short tactic discussion in which they decided they would just have fun they entered the quidditch field from the east corner at the same time as all the other teams. They immediately ran for the cover of the nearest obstacle and from behind of it they fired their first shots of the day.

Within minutes the quidditch field was filled with madness. Everywhere people were shooting and dodging the small multicolored balls. And the obstacles soon were painted in disorienting rains of mismatched colors. James had to agree that the little balls could hurt when his own son shot one into his back.

He was the first of his team to move out of the field, where he joined Arthur Weasley who sported a large pink spot on his robes. Edna was slowly walking around the field. Arthur smiled at him: 'This is great fun. If you ever do it again I would love to join again.'

James grinned back at him: 'Yeah, it's cool isn't it.'

They watched the ongoing free fight for a while until Arthur commented: 'I have to say that Harry and the other kids from your group seem to be great at dodging.'

'Yeah, we practiced a lot with them. You should see Harry acting against magic sometimes, it is almost like he can feel the curses heading his way.' James nodded.

Arthur blinked a few times. 'You are shooting curses at them?'

'Yeah, but nothing bad. Tickling charms mostly and sometimes mild stinging hexes.' James replied.

'I see.' Arthur slowly replied.

James decided to change the subject: 'Neville gave Ginny a few pointers and she seems to be rather good at dodging as well.'

Arthur smiled: 'Yeah, she is fast. I still think she is going to make a fine chaser or seeker someday. But the boys usually don't want her to play with them. They are afraid their mum will kill them if something happens to their baby sister.' He drily added: 'Not without reason.'

With a chuckle James replied: 'Judging from how she is acting during this I think she can take care of herself.'

Arthur simply nodded in agreement before cheering when Ron took out Remus. After that Lily was the next to join them. Somehow, she had been shot twice at the same second, which gave her a nice colorful yellow and green shirt. After a while there were only four people left in the game; Harry, Ginny, Hermione and Neville. Sirius was complaining that it was unfair how kids were harder to hit when Edna blew a whistle. The four kids quickly joined them and Edna explained: 'That was really good, now let's try something else.' She picked up two flags and said: 'I want two teams now. Let's say orange and yellow against blue and pink. Both teams will have a flag, the main goal is to capture the other teams flag and bring it back to your own flag. Okay?'

Everybody nodded, they were just anxious to get back in the arena already. James was quite sure he was not the only one who was unsurprised that they never managed to play any board games that day. Instead, they kept on paintballing until it was too dark to actually see the bullets.

_A/N: Pfew, just in time. Twenty-four hours from now I will be above Canada;) I know I promised you two chapters for this week. But between vacation preparations and a little writers block I decided to combine those two virtual chapters into this single update. _

_I hope to see you all back in some three weeks. At that time, we will finally arrive at the timeline of the books. __So somewhere just before Harry's eleventh birthday._

_Ten reviews this time:_

_Taeniaea:__ Thanks again:)_

_Happylady:__ And even more play time today! Although I guess dodging paint ball bullets is a good form of training…_

_TsukiyoTenshi:__ I can hardly see James and Sirius not insisting on marauder nicknames :D_

_Ty Rose:__ Thanks! And we are heading for Ontario, basically the area between Niagara Falls and Ottawa. It is funny to think that it is just a small part of Canada while the distances that we travel during those three weeks would allow us to drive all around our own country a few times :P _

_ILikeComps:__ And next chapter they all head back to muggle training;) But I hope that was fun too. Soon, their formal magic training will start anyway._

_Lgilbert1982:__ Thanks. Can't believe I made that mistake again. It was pointed out to me before;) But I'll edit it once more._

_MAFITA:__ I guess Hogwarts is still a few chapters away, but we're getting closer;) As for the pairing, I am still not sure about what will happen there. In canon he only started to notice girls in his fifth year, so I have a while to decide I guess;) Unless I have James give him 'the talk' sometime before… that could either get Harry interested in girls a bit earlier or scare him away from them for life… ;)_

_My flawed design:__ Hehe, well I guess at this point all of the female Hogwarts population does have a chance (although most of the Slytherins have the odds against them;)), so looking at it like that Ginny is unlikely :P_

_RRW:__ Hmm, I thought Dumbledore wanted to destroy the horcrux that was involved in summoning the monster. That way they would avoid the monster problem, and since William never really explained about the monster it would be hard to find it anyway. Still, I can't really find the part where Dumbledore explained that. Maybe I simply forgot mentioning it in the story… Anyway, for now there is no specific monster hunt going on. _

_Creativeant:__ Good to hear! I always get a bit worried that my stories become too long to attract new readers. So I am always happy to find out when someone reads it all in one go:)_


	19. Telling Harry

**Telling Harry**

Never before had James been so grateful about house elves. But then, this was also the first time that he had introduced four kids and two adults to Diagon Alley. After a tour through the alley and a quick visit to Gringotts they had unleashed the six newcomers on the magical shopping district.

All the kids had been putting aside pocket money for years in anticipation of this visit. And both Granger adults were very excited about the idea of buying some harmless magical items and books. In fact, the eyes of the clerk at Flourish and Blotts had almost popped out of his head when he saw three large Granger-propelled book piles moving towards his counter.

After that Sirius, Remus and James had pulled the kids towards the jokes shop of Gambol and Japes. After all, they had to make sure that the New Marauders would be well prepared when they arrived at Hogwarts. Of course, they had all simply ignored the protests of the other adults. James tried to explain to Lily how pranking was a kind of battle training, but somehow she seemed not to agree with him. Their house elf Timmy needed to make another few jumps to Lionfire Hall after that shop.

After that there had been a few more stores including Quality Quidditch Supplies and Eeylops Owl Emporium where all kids got a nice owl. James especially liked Harry's snow white owl. Then they had to visit a few more stores for school supplies. Like Madam Malkin's robes for all occasions, Potage's cauldron shop, Scribbulus Everchanging Inks and of course Ollivander's for wands. The old man had shocked them all by mentioning that Harry's new phoenix feather wand was a brother to Voldemort's. But Lily and Remus were soon discussing the possible consequences while the others got distracted by the wide candy assortment of the local candy store. After a while James and Lily had pulled Harry away to a magical optician for glasses and lenses. Of course they paid for all kinds of nifty charms on the glasses, it was a shame that the man could not spell the lenses in the same way. After that James had treated them all on ice cream at Fortescue's. Jack and Edna had objected at first, but Lily told them that the ice cream actually had very low sugar levels. Then they reluctantly agreed.

All in all it had been a very nice day. And at least the number of 'Potter fans' had been relatively low. Compared to the mob that haunted them the first time that Lily and James had entered Diagon Alley after the defeat of Voldemort the five well-wishers of today had been barely worth noticing. Of course, the Grangers and the kids had been very surprised by them. But it was nice to see the tables turned on them when they ran into the Weasley's and Arthur discovered that Jack and Edna were actual muggles.

It was almost a shame that for James and Lily there had been another black cloud hanging over their day out. Today, they would tell Harry about the prophecy and about what they learned from both William and Dumbledore. And now that all their guests had left and _house elf had put their new purchases away,_ there was no more reason to stall. Although James would not have minded a few more excuses. After all, how on earth were they going to tell their own eleven year old son that a crazy dark lord would eventually return from the dead and try to kill him?

And so James saw the other kids and their parents leaving with a sense of impending doom. Lily apparently noticed for she grimaced to him: 'Get a grip James. I mean, you had almost six months to prepare for this.'

'Well… I failed.' James shrugged, not feeling the least ashamed of it.

Remus chuckled dryly: 'I have to admit it is tempting to postpone it a bit. He is so happy with his new owl and wand.'

'No, we cannot postpone it.' Lily protested, 'We agreed on this date months ago. And if we postpone it once it will be ever easier to find more excuses and keep postponing it.'

'Yeah. But the wand was a nasty surprise.' James admitted, 'So, what did you two discuss about it?'

Lily shook her head: 'It was not really a surprise.' When she noticed James' questioning look she added: 'Don't you remember? William already mentioned it. Remus and I were merely discussing if this proved that history was taking the same course. But we concluded that it did not really say anything about the wider course of events.'

James blinked. He had to admit that he had forgotten that detail. He mostly remembered about Harry's prophesized life and the deathly hallows. Maybe he should join Harry in the pensieve. Now he nodded: 'I can vaguely recall it. I always thought it would be difficult to tell Harry about the whole thing, but we have to worry about details like this too I guess… Thank Merlin for pensieves.'

The other two agreed with him and after a short silence they all wordlessly agreed that there was no real reason to keep delaying it. James summoned the pensieve from the sitting room and they all walked towards Harry's room.

Inside Harry's room they found an excited teenager telling his new owl about Iris White. The seeker of Harry's favourite quidditch team; Puddlemere United. A life size poster of White in her dark blue quidditch robes was waving to the new arrivals from the left wall. James usually tried to taunt Harry about it when he entered the room. After all, every Potter should support Pride of Portree. However, this time he just coughed to get Harry's attention.

His son turned and smiled to them: 'Hey, I was just telling my new owl about my room. I figured it would make her feel at home.'

'I see.' James nodded, 'Did you already name her?'

'No. I hope to find a nice name in one of my books.' Harry replied.

'Try the history book.' Lily suggested.

'Or just call her Minerva. I believe it is the name of the Roman goddess of wisdom.' Remus chuckled. James laughed as well. He wondered what their former house of head would think of that.

Harry looked thoughtful and turned to his owl: 'Would you like that? Minerva?' Surprisingly the owl hooted disapprovingly and Harry continued: 'I guess not then. But we will find a nice name soon enough.'

Lily smiled at the little interaction before she suddenly turned serious: 'Harry? There is something we need to tell you.'

Harry looked a bit alarmed at the tone of his mother: 'Oh?'

'Do you know what a pensieve is?' Lily asked.

'Yeah, I think I once saw you use it. It is a bit like a movie projector, right?' Harry replied.

Lily nodded: 'More or less. Although it shows memories instead of video tapes.'

'Most pensieves actually work different and pull you inside the memory. But this type is more used for instruction.' Remus added.

Harry nodded and focused on the device in James' hands: 'You are going to show me something then?'

'Yeah.' James agreed, 'I think it is best if we just watch all four memories before you start asking questions.'

Again Harry nodded, he was clearly worried by the solemn looks of his parents and honorary uncle. Harry silently watched how his parents were informed about the prophecy by Voldemort. Next they saw the meeting between James, Lily, Frank, Alice and Dumbledore where they decided to consult a real seer. After that Harry slowly turned more and more pale when they watched James and Frank visiting William, and then the discussion about it. A bit of his colour returned when Lily moved forward and put her arms around him.

When the final presentation turned off there was a long silence until Harry softly said: 'So, what does this mean? I have to kill Voldemort?'

Lily pulled him even closer to her while Remus tried to explain: 'We are still not entirely sure about that. But yes, William reasoned that you might be the only one that can finish him.'

'But…' Harry stammered, 'I only got my wand today!'

'We know that Harry. And it is not like we are asking you to go hunt him down tomorrow.' James tried to reassure his son. 'In fact, if I get my way we will capture him, destroy his wand and throw him in jail. Then, if it really turns out that you have to be the one to kill him you can wait until you are as old as Dumbledore for all I care.'

Harry looked both confused and relieved by that: 'But then… Why tell me now?'

'Because we want you to know about this.' Lily replied with a grimace, 'If Voldemort manages to return to his body you can be sure that he will try and attack you. You will have to be on your guard. Beside that, it is possible that we will have to arrange some irritating security measures, and now at least you know why.'

'Not sure if it really makes my day.' Harry dryly replied. Both his parents had to grin at that and Remus replied: 'Next to that we had to wait until your occlumency was decent enough. Right now you should be able to repel simple attacks. As soon as you notice an attack move away or disturb the attacker. I think a good legilimens can still get through your shields if he has the time.'

'How would I do that?'

'Avoid eye contact.' Lily suggested, 'And just create a scene if you have to. Legilimency is highly frowned upon. So most people would stop their attempt when they notice that you discovered them.'

Once again Harry nodded. Then he softly continued: 'So this is why we got all the extra training?' After a short silence he added: 'Can I tell the others as well?'

'We figured it should be your choice. Just be careful not to inform anyone that does not know occlumency. Sadly, that also means Hermione's parents.' James replied.

With a frown his son replied: 'Wow, I did not even think about that… Poor Hermione, at least I can talk about it with you guys.'

Lily smiled: 'Yes, about that… do you have any questions?'

Harry thought about that for a few moments: 'This power that Voldemort does not know… What is it?'

'William seemed to think that you would combine the three hallows and become master of death.' Remus replied, 'You know about the hallows, right?'

'Well, yeah… but I thought it was a fairy tale.' Harry admitted, 'How am I ever going to get those items?'

'I was planning to give you the cloak before you head to Hogwarts. It is a family heirloom and generations of Potters made good use of it.' James replied, and he had to suppress a laugh when he saw the clearly surprised expression on Harry's face. After a while his son managed: 'Well, that sounds easy enough. Any idea about the wand and the stone?'

Now it was Lily's turn: 'I have the stone in my vault at Gringotts. I will give it to you as soon as you manage to get the wand.' Before he could ask she continued: 'Right now it is in Dumbledore's possession. But the trouble is that you will actually have to defeat him in a duel before you can take it.'

If possible Harry looked even more shocked at this: 'Defeat Dumbledore? But… That is impossible.'

James grinned: 'Again, you can take your time. Just remember to enjoy Hogwarts for now.'

'As long as you are careful.' Lily quickly added.

'And make sure to get a few more loyal friends.' Remus added his own advice.

Harry slowly nodded: 'I guess. It is all a bit much.'

All three adults silently agreed with him. Although James had the suspicion that Harry was not even starting to realise the full meaning of it all. But then, he was very young. Lily spoke up: 'It's okay darling, why don't we just give you some time to think about it? Just make sure to come and talk with us if you have any questions.'

Harry started to agree but James interrupted him: 'One more thing. We made this for you and your friends.' He reached into his pocket while Remus left the room and withdrew a thin golden chain. Harry accepted it when he handed it to him and looked at it in surprise: 'A necklace? What do I need a necklace for?'

'It is not just a necklace.' James smiled, he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the small ornament that dangled from the necklace: 'Engorgio.' Suddenly the small ornament grew into a round mirror with a diameter of some six inches.

Harry still looked puzzled and James explained: 'Look into it and say 'Remus'.'

With a shrug he did so and he almost dropped the mirror when Remus' face showed up and said: 'Hey cub!'

'Whoa! That's cool!' Harry exclaimed.

James and Lily smiled and Lily said: 'You can just disconnect by wiping the surface with your hand.'

Harry did so and from down the corridor Remus' voice shouted: 'It is polite to say goodbye first though!'

They all laughed and after a while James continued his explanation: 'If someone else tries to contact you the ornament will heat up. You just have to find a quiet spot and use the engorgio charm.'  
'But I do not know how?' Harry protested.

'That is why we are going to spend most of the remaining vacation on teaching it to you and the others. Together with the reducio charm that will return it back to small size.' Lily assured him.

'Oh, will the others get one as well? Cool!' Harry replied.

Lily smiled: 'In fact, Hermione already got hers this morning. And I am sure Susan and Neville have theirs as well by now. But before you go talk with them there is one more important thing. Well, two actually.' Somehow their son paid much more attention now than during a regular class. 'First, all of us have one of those mirrors. That means the four of you and all the parents. And Remus of course. Beside that there is a central mirror called 'Mask', that one will always be manned, even at night. If you ever need urgent help in Hogwarts, call to that mirror.'

'Mask.' Harry nodded impatiently, 'Can I try and call the others now?'

Lily just grinned and James said: 'Just call all their names, that way the mirror will show them all at the same time.'

'Hermione! Neville! Susan!' Harry shouted. James and Lily looked at each other and silently left the room while Harry and the other kids started to explore their new toy.

_A/N: Pfew, finally an update. Hope I was not too rusty ;) When I got back from Canada I found at that my laptop had died somehow :( But I got a new one now, although I still have to get used to the new keyboard… _

_It is possible that the next update will be delayed a bit. I already wrote part of it on my old laptop, so I have to wait and see if they can still remove it from the hard disk. Anyway, I'll aim for a Tuesday update at the very worst;) _

_Anyway, with the last pre-Hogwarts issues out of the way next chapter will be the first Harry centric chapter when we finally arrive at our favourite magic school._

_On to reviews again. Quite a few this time, I guess I should do more four-week-updates, right?;)_

_ILikeComps: Yeah, I thought about a miraculous rescue for a while. But I figured there was no way for them to know that this was going to happen. And yeah, those little paint balls can hurt… good motivation to dodge I guess :D_

_Taeniaea: Thanks! I thought it would be a funny way of training as long as they can not fire their own spells. _

_Stonegnome1: Heh, I guess Voldemort was upset when he got killed by muggle land mines, if they manage to kill him with a paintball gun next time he will most likely be to ashamed to even try and come back again :P It is a nice idea though, not sure if it has any benefits when compared to a wand… but maybe the Grangers can have some fun with it…_

_MAFITA: Yeah, beside that, it would be kinda boring if they could save everyone. And as I said, I could not really think of a reason why Luna's mother would not do exactly the same experiments in this timeline._

_TsukiyouTenshi: I guess I do not give much away when I say that Luna will not immediately join them. She won't go to Hogwarts until Harry's second year after all. I am not quite sure yet what will happen at that time ;) _

_Man of faith: Hehe, I tried to keep the pre Hogwarts training interesting for the kids. Although of course there were some boring things like occlumency. And of course, when half of the adults are still kids it is even more fun for them._

_Happylady: Thanks! Hope you liked this chapter as well, although I guess it was a bit more boring;)_

_TIGGI1: Thanks. I guess the update took a while, but from now on I will go back to regular updates again._

_XXRemusXXTonksXX: Thanks, and see above I guess;)_

_RRW: I'll put it on my way too long 'to-read-list' ;) I still do not really know what girl will eventually capture Harry's heart… In canon, he only got somewhat interested in girls in his fourth year I think. So I have a while to think about it… _

_Ayumu Smile:_ _I sometimes wonder about that as well. I only made a very rough outline that I am pretty much filling in as I go. So the only answer I can give is: 'long'. Which does not really help I guess :D _

_Jadefire_starlight: The Weasley's will be around, although not as prominent as in canon. I mean, you can hardly ignore all those red headed kids;) And I will definitely continue this story, I am having way too much fun with it._

_Cflat: Well, you know what they say… opposites attract;) I admit that Susans home life is most likely quiet noisy every now and then :P_

_Snowball1982: You're welcome!_

_Penny is wise: Thanks, hope you will continue enjoying it._

_Love-pink26: Judging by the reviews I got so far most people disagree with you;) But as I said before, everything is still possible on that part. With all the different suggestions I got in my reviews and mails so far Harry could actually start a harem :P I am sure his (god)father would be proud… not so sure about Lily though._

_SkylerKnight: I can't remember that… She was not really one of the vocal ones right? I guess in my story it did not happen that way anyway, but just wondering._


	20. Hogwarts

**Hogwarts**

Harry had been quite impressed with the amount of strangers he had seen in Diagon Alley, but it was nothing compared to muggle London. His father had parked the car on a parking lot a little distance away from King's Cross station. Once they left the car Harry had immediately been engulfed by an infamous Hermione hug and without taking a breath she had very quickly told him that they had arrived five minutes ago and that she was so excited to finally go to Hogwarts.

He managed to calm her down a little bit before a tiny red car arrived. Its doors opened and somehow both Neville and Susan jumped out immediately. They were quickly followed by Sirius, Amelia and Neville's parents. Harry vaguely heard his mother explaining the magic involved and how Sirius had still not gotten his driver's license while he and Hermione greeted their friends.

And now they were walking towards King's Cross. Remus was leading them and he was chatting away with Hermione's parents. Behind them Harry and the other kids followed, each pulling their own trunk behind them. All of the trunks had been charmed and now they were very easy to pull. Harry had wanted to use a reducio charm and put it in his pocket, but according to his mother it would ruin the trunks own charms. And beside that, she said he needed it for his owl; Hedwig. All four of them had an owl cage resting on their trunks, which must have looked odd for the muggles around them. But most of them seemed to ignore the small group; most likely there was some charmwork involved. Harry could not wait to start learning more magic himself. The engorgio and reducio charms had been hard work, but apparently they were not really first year spells. He could only hope for some exciting spells.

Looking around he noticed that his own parents were walking on his left. They were barely looking his way but paid far more attention to the surroundings. On his right Neville's parents did the same and when he looked behind him he saw that Sirius and Amelia often looked behind them. He was glad that he had already told his friends about the prophecy. At least none of them was freaked out by the adults' strange behaviour now. When he looked forward once again he wondered if the normally quiet Remus was intently distracting Hermione's parents.

After a short time they arrived at the actual station. If possible, it was even busier inside than outside. Just when they arrived at the barrier between platforms nine and ten a small family passed in front of them. All the kids stopped walking when they suddenly did not see Remus or Hermione's parents anymore. Harry frowned, they could not have gotten that far during those few seconds that he could not see them. Around him the adults were chuckling and he looked at his father who smiled back at him: 'Just walk through the wall.'

Harry snorted. Yeah right. Like he would fall for that after growing up among the marauders. No, he was not going to make a fool out of himself today. But then his mother said: 'It is true sweetie.' Oh great, his mother just called him sweetie, he hoped she would not start crying when the train left. 'It is a magic portal to platform nine and three quarters.'

Still doubtful he looked at the wall between the two platforms again. It looked rather solid to him. Just to be sure he looked at his friends, who all seemed to share his doubts. Then he shrugged and simply marched forward. He could not help but close his eyes just before hitting the wall, but surprisingly after a few more steps he had still not felt anything. Carefully he opened his eyes and saw Remus and the Grangers smiling at him. After a quick smile back he looked around the platform.

It looked very cool. A huge scarlet red steam engine was slowly starting its engine, and huge clouds of smoke started to drift above the chattering crowd. He saw lots of people in wizarding robes, but there were many people in muggle clothes as well. At least he was not the only kid that would have to change in the train then. He saw cats walking around here and there, and owls were hooting at each other. Even Hedwig hooted a few times.

'Wow!' Neville said when he showed up next to him and saw the large train. Harry just nodded and did so two more times when the girls arrived. Shortly after that all the adults were on the platform as well and they moved away from the doorway.

He heard his father say: 'It's good to be back here, isn't it Padfoot?'

'Definitely Prongs.' Sirius grinned, 'Just a shame that we can not hop on that train and go see who manages to get the first detention.'

'Oh yes… good times.' Dad sighed, and then he turned to Harry and smiled: 'But our kids can do that now.'

'James?' His mum asked in a rather strict tone.

'Oh… of course.' James nodded before he turned very serious as well and spoke to Harry and the others: 'I want you all on your best behaviour while at Hogwarts. It's a great school, and you should not disturb it. Beside that, Albus and Minerva are getting old. They do not need your stunts. Don't tell them I said that by the way. Well, do not tell Minerva, Albus would most likely think it funny anyway.' Of course the effect of the speech was a bit ruined by the big fat winks he kept shooting in their direction. But mum seemed satisfied, she actually patted dad on his shoulder.

They all chuckled and promised to be 'good'. Then there was a loud whistle and Remus said: 'Fifteen minutes to go. Time to say goodbye I think.'

The four families separated a bit, while Remus kept looking around almost nervously. His own parents kneeled down next to him. Mum smiled: 'I am so proud of you Harry. I know you will do great in Hogwarts.' There were some very small tears in her eyes. None in his own though, although the smoke was starting to irritate him a bit. He hoped it would not get any worse; it was so irritating to rub your eyes while wearing contacts. Mum continued: 'Do not pay too much attention to what your father and your uncles say. Hogwarts is above all a school, you should learn and prepare yourself.'

Harry swallowed, he was still not sure how he felt about the threat of Voldemort. It all seemed so far away, but if he had to believe his parents the dark lord would come for him sooner or later. His dad took over: 'Learning is good, but you should remember to have fun. Oh, by the way, if you have a chance see if you can sneak into Filch's office. Use the cloak if you have to. There should be an old bit of empty parchment in there somewhere, if you can find it give me a call and I will explain how to use it. It would be of great help to you.'

Mum reluctantly nodded: 'Do you remember the central mirror?'

Harry nodded: 'Yeah, Mask.'

Mum smiled and dad said: 'Your friends seem to be waiting for you. Why don't you guys go find a nice compartment? We will wait here and wave when the train leaves.'

Again Harry nodded before quickly moving a hand through his eyes. Stupid smoke. Then he turned and walked the few steps to his three friends. Somehow he managed to say goodbye to all the other adults during that small trip. And then the four of them boarded the Hogwarts express for the first time.

- Thirty minutes later -

It had taken them a while to find an empty compartment. Maybe they should have entered the train a bit earlier. But almost at the end of the train they had found one. They had waved goodbye to their parents until the station finally disappeared. They had even waved to Ginny, the small red haired girl that had joined them at paintball a while ago had run along the train for half a minute or so, waving to her brothers who were apparently only a few compartments in front of them.

After the platform had finally disappeared they had excitedly talked about the train and Hogwarts for a while. But now Hermione suddenly stood up, checked if the door was closed and turned around with a serious expression: 'I have been thinking.'

'No surprise there.' Susan smiled back at her.

'Oh shush.' Hermione grinned, 'Anyway, ever since Harry told us about that stupid prophecy I have been thinking.' She reached into her pocket and withdrew a small folded piece of paper. She carefully opened it and said: 'I think there are a few things that we should think about now:  
1. Since Harry is going to be in danger eventually we should all be in the same house.  
2. We should try and make friends among the other students.  
3. We should really pay attention in classes, and maybe practise on our own as well.'

She was silent for a while and looked at them for a short while. Then she said: 'Come on, what do you guys think?'

'Oh? You are done already? Usually your lists are longer.' Neville protested to explain their silence.

Hermione blushed: 'Well, it was. But I shortened it into those three main points.'

'Thanks for doing this Hermione. I have no idea where you even found the time to think.' Harry smiled at her, 'I do agree with all three points. But how will we manage to all enter the same house? I mean, I do not even know how we will be sorted. My parents did not want to tell me.'

'Same here.' Neville admitted.

Hermione just helplessly shrugged: 'I do not know either. My parents have never been to Hogwarts obviously, and _Hogwarts: a history _only mentions the sorting in general. It does not explain what actually happens.'

They all looked at Susan, who was smiling broadly: 'But I know!'

'What? They just told you?' Harry asked, 'I thought it was supposed to be a secret.'

'Oh it was. But Sirius is absolutely rubbish at keeping secrets.' Susan smiled again, 'I just told him I was so nervous about the sorting and that I was afraid it would hurt. And then he told me I would only have to put on some kind of magic hat and it would choose a house for me.'

The other three grinned and Neville asked: 'Just like that huh?'

'Yep.' Susan replied simply, 'Although I have no idea how we can influence the decision of the hat.'

'I guess we will have to improvise.' Harry shrugged.

Hermione did not really look happy with that idea. But she nodded eventually and said: 'Then we have another problem; which house do we try to join? I mean, I read what _Hogwarts: a history _had to say about the different houses…'

'My father was in Ravenclaw, and my mother in Gryffindor.' Neville replied, 'They sometimes tease each other about it… I think Ravenclaw is for smart people and Gryffindor for brave ones.'

'Yeah, that fits with what my parents said.' Harry nodded. 'Hufflepuff is more about loyalty and hard working, and Slytherin seems to be all about cunning and status. And they are considered dark by many people, although my mum always said she used to have a good friend in that house. Dad looks weird when she says that though.'

Hermione nodded and looked at Susan: 'According to Sirius Gryffindor is by far the best… But my auntie was a Hufflepuff and she often says she wished she had some puffs around her in the ministry.' Then she thoughtfully looked at Hermione: 'I think Slytherin would not work for us though.'

'Why not?' Hermione asked.

'A lot of the kids in Slytherin care a lot about blood status. They would not like a muggleborn like you to join their house.' Susan explained in a kind voice.

'This of course is their loss.' Neville added quickly.

Hermione smiled at him and Harry quickly took over: 'So we have Gryffindor for bravery, Ravenclaw for intelligence and Hufflepuff for loyalty? Tough choice.'

'If we can even make our own choice that is.' Hermione added, 'I think we should go for Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. We have enough loyal friends between us and our guardians. And we can always try and befriend the Hufflepuffs.'

Neville and Harry easily agreed, Susan was a bit slower but then she said: 'Alright then. Auntie will be a bit disappointed, but I am sure she will be alright with it.'

'Ok.' Harry nodded, 'So Gryffindor or Ravenclaw?'

Before the others could reply there was a loud knock on the door. They all looked up and saw a familiar tall redhead outside. Harry looked at the others. Neville and Susan shrugged, but Hermione waved him forward. Most likely she was already thinking about item two of her list. Harry grinned and waved towards Ron Weasley, who opened the door and walked into the compartment.

'Hey all. Do you mind if I join you? I was sitting with my brothers, but although they are fun I got a bit tired of them.' He asked.

Harry shrugged and moved a bit closer towards Susan while waving at the spot on his other side. Ron dropped down next to him and after a short silence he asked: 'What were you guys talking about?'

Before Harry could even think about how to answer that Hermione said: 'We were just debating what houses we would end up in. Do you know what house you will be in?'

Ron nodded before he looked thoughtful: 'Well, I guess no one really knows before they get sorted. But all my family has been in Gryffindor. So I guess that is where I will go as well.' Apparently he missed the glances that the other four exchanged. Harry was not really sure, but he hoped the other glances meant the same as his. Ron and Ginny and their father had been nice enough during the paintball game. If there were even more Weasley's in Gryffindor that sounded like a good thing.

'Maybe we will end up there as well.' Neville replied.

Ron smiled: 'It would be nice to know a few people, right?' After they all nodded he grinned and asked: 'Hey, did you guys bring those paintball guns? Those things were wicked.'

'No. Our parents thought they would not be allowed at Hogwarts.' Harry replied.

Ron looked disappointed: 'Ah well, probably better not to give Fred and George any ideas.'

'Who?' Neville asked.

'Oh, two of my brothers. They fool around a lot. Always talking about starting their own joke shop some day. And sometimes they talk about their 'heroes', a group called the marauders.' Ron laughed and seemed to miss all their shocked looks when he continued: 'I think they just made that name up.'

'Yeah, probably.' Harry weakly replied, then he tried to change the topic 'So… What is your quidditch team?'

It seemed a safe enough topic. But when they learned Ron actually supported the Chudley Cannons both Susan and Harry were so shocked that they had to find out why anyone would do that. The quidditch discussion between the three of them only ended when Hermione said: 'Hey, the candy lady is here. Hand me a galleon.' Both Harry and Susan did so without protest and when Harry noticed Rons confused look he explained: 'We all agreed to pool one galleon and Hermione is going to see how much candy she can get with it, after that we all share it. You want in too?'

Ron hesitated for a few seconds before he unconvincingly said: 'No thanks, I have sandwiches from home. I'm fine.'

The other four looked at each other in surprise, not sure why anyone would prefer sandwiches to candy. Hermione walked into the corridor and they could hear her talking with the lady. A short while later she walked back inside with two huge bags. She smiled at Ron: 'If you do not terribly mind we could use some help with our loot. Of course, if you prefer your sandwiches…'

Ron blushed, but after a few seconds he said: 'It would be impolite not to help you. Right?'

'Definitely.' Neville agreed, he was already pillaging through one of the bags looking for some of his favourite sweets.

'Yeah, please do.' Susan added. 'I never expected so much for only four galleons.'

Ron looked at her in wonder for a few seconds before he hesitantly helped himself to some chocolate frogs. Harry grinned, it seemed like they had just made their first new friend.

- Six hours later -

After a nice trip over the lake and a quick visit of the Hogwarts ghosts they were finally allowed into the great hall of Hogwarts. Harry heard Hermione whispering something about the ceiling, but he was way too busy looking around. There were four long tables, which should be the house tables, were the older students were sitting. Above them floated lots of candles which gave the large hall a nice and cosy feeling. At the far end of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led them to there and made them face the students.

Next she put a simple four legged stool in front of them and on top of that she put a rather ugly wizard hat. It did not look like much, but strangely all the other students seemed to be staring at it. Suddenly the hat started to sing. Harry was too surprised by it to really pay attention to the words, but in the end it explained that it would sort them into their new houses. Of course, they had already known that thanks to Susan. But he guessed most people did not know. That was confirmed when he heard Ron complaining: 'So we just have to put on a hat? I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll.'

Professor McGonagall was stepping forward again. She had a large roll of parchment in her hand and said quite clearly: 'When I call your name you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted… Abbot, Hannah!'

A blonde haired girl moved forward and put on the hat. Only a second after she sat down the head shouted: 'HUFFLEPUFF!'

The Hufflepuff table started to cheer and the blond girl walked towards them. Then the professor called: 'Bones, Susan.'

Next to him he could feel Hermione and Neville snapping to attention as well when their friend walked towards the hat. She sat down and the hat was silent for what seemed to be a long time. Eventually it shook a bit before it shouted: 'GRYFFINDOR!'

It went on for a while like that. Most people were sorted within seconds, although it took the hat almost a minute before a sandy-haired boy called Seamus Finnegan was also sorted into Gryffindor. Hermione was next, and again it took a very long time before the hat finally declared her a Gryffindor as well. It was no surprise when the hat also took a long time to put Neville into Gryffindor.

There were a few more names after that, but eventually professor McGonagall called him forward. As soon as the hat was on his head he heard a small voice. If it did not sound so stupid he would have thought the hat had a grumpy voice when it said: 'So you are the Potter boy huh? Your friends seemed rather sure they should be in Gryffindor to be with you… Blasted kids, I have been sorting for centuries and they dare to tell me…'

The grumbling voice became almost too soft to hear and Harry softly asked: 'What did they say?'

'First that Bones girl threatened to put me on fire if I put her in another house.' The hat complained. 'Then the Granger girl said she would make me spawn rabbits… whatever that is supposed to mean…'

Harry was confused as well. 'Most likely a muggle thing. But I do not think she would throw rabbits at you if you were burning. She loves animals… Maybe they will go in turns?'

The hat grumbled a bit more before it continued: 'And then the Longbottom boy simply promises to slowly rip me apart if I even think of putting him anywhere else. I guess you have some nice threat as well?'

'Who? Me? I would never do that, I'd just hand you over to my friends.' Harry replied innocently.

The hat actually made a snorting sound, although Harry had no idea how. 'Are you sure you should not be a Slytherin?'

'Definitely.' Harry fervently nodded in reply, which almost dropped the hat.

'Hey! Watch it!' It protested before it sighed: 'Anyway, all right then. Promise me there won't be more of your friends coming?'

He doubted for a moment if he should mention Ron, but he figured it was highly unlikely that the boy would try and force the hat into anything and so he simply replied: 'No.'

'Alright then.' The hat softly replied before it shouted once more: 'GRYFFINDOR!'

Harry smiled and put the hat back on the stool before he slowly walked to his loudly cheering new house table. Somehow, he thought his three friends' voices were by far the loudest.

_A/N: And here I thought Harry's first year would only take a few chapters… I mean, I just used a full chapter for his first day, only three hundred to go ;) I think I will try and describe mostly the changes to the original timeline and skip some of the events that stay the same. After all, you've already read about those in the original books…_

_Eleven reviews this time:_

_TsukiyoTenshi: Done, and thanks for reviewing again._

_Happylady: Four days this time, much better I think :) And the harem story is very unlikely to happen here. Although my stories do sometimes tend to run away from me I believe I have enough control to prevent that…_

_ILikeComps: Yeah, I think for an eleven year old it would be almost impossible to really understand all the implications of something like this. But I think it is better that Harry and his friends know about it already. On a side note, I think you just made review number 200! I would offer you a trophy, but I'll have to buy one first;)_

_Guest: Yay, an award! I'll try not to plan any more long vacations before this story is finished;) And it is nice to write about James and Lily. They are canon characters, but offer a lot of freedom within the few comments that were made about them in the books._

_Horselvr171: Well, here you go :D Hope you liked it._

_RRW: Wait until the Weasley twins start learning from the old marauders ;)_

_Readsalot2002: It was just over 60k words without reviews before this chapter if I have to believe my writing program. But I understand what you mean. And I know this way of replying to reviews is not perfect, but it is better than the alternatives :P_

_Cflat: I hope you enjoyed the first 'Harry-chapter'. I am not sure if the best friend status is still available to Ron, but as you can see they are getting along so far. As to Ginny developing a crush on Harry… Maybe, maybe not;)_

_MAFITA: Yeah, it always bothers me how they sometimes seem reluctant to really use magic in canon. I mean, if you have it you might as well use it for things like this. _

_Penny is wise: Thanks, good to hear!_

_Teufel1987: I always thought a teenager was from 10-19, most likely another thing lost in translation. Anyway, I started googling it and apparently I am a vicenarian, which sounds much more sophisticated than 'twen'._

_Going to edit the death/dead thing right away. It is stupid, I know the difference but I keep making that mistake. _


	21. First classes

**First classes**

Their first days at Hogwarts were rather confusing. The four of them had trouble finding their classrooms or even the great hall at first. Although their parents had told them a lot about Hogwarts it seemed they had forgotten to mention how to find your way around it. Still, with some help from older students or Sir Nicholas, the Gryffindor house ghost, they managed to arrive at all their classes in time. A few times Hermione wondered why no one ever made a map of the castle, but none of them had an answer to that.

Still, so far they had a great time. Their first class had been herbology, which was taught by a small witch called professor Sprout. Since the Longbottom greenhouses were much more diverse than the one used by Hogwarts for the first years it looked like they would have a huge advantage during her class.

If professor Sprout was small, their next professor was still smaller. He was tiny. But professor Flitwick was also very cheerful and full of energy. Again, they had an advantage in this class. During the last part of their summer vacation mum and Remus had given the four of them a crash course in the engorgio and reducio charms. They had included some general theory about charms which was repeated almost word for word by professor Flitwick during their first class. Still, Harry and the others hoped they would soon learn new spells in this classroom, after all they only knew two charms so far. And they were looking forward to increase that number.

After the cheerful charms professor their next teacher was a huge disappointment. History of magic was actually taught by a ghost, who did not even introduce himself or the subject but just started droning on and on in a dull monotone about some goblin revolution. After the class only Hermione thought it had been interesting, but when Neville told her that she could just as well ask his grandmother about wizarding history sometime she immediately looked very interested in the possibility of learning magical history from another source.

On the next day they had their first transfiguration class from professor McGonagall, who was also the head of Gryffindor house. She seemed to be a very strict but honest teacher. And of course Harry and the other three had heard a lot of stories about this teacher; she had already been the head of Gryffindor when Harry's parents went to Hogwarts. And all the former Gryffindors seemed to greatly respect her. She changed her desk into a pig and back again and made it look easy. Sadly enough they just had to take a lot of complicated notes after that, and this time it was all new to the four of them as well.

But when they all got a match and were asked to turn it into a needle they could use the visualisation practices they had used in their animagus training. And although so far none of them had made any real headway on the animagus training they all managed to at least alter their matches. Although only Hermione managed to change both the colour and the shape. Professor McGonagall was very surprised that four students actually booked results during her first class and when she asked about it Harry replied: 'My father and Sirius taught us a few tricks professor. They really seemed to help.'

The professor nodded and a small smile appeared on her face: 'I see. Both James and Sirius were very good at transfiguration, and although I am glad to see that you inherited some of James' talent I do hope your study habits will more resemble your mother's Mr. Potter.'

Harry just smiled innocently and the professor turned to Hermione: 'Miss Granger? I believe you are muggleborn?' When Hermione only nodded she continued: 'So I take it you did this without the benefit of any extra training?'

Hermione shook her head: 'Oh no professor, I received the same training as they did.'

Professor McGonagall looked surprised at that. 'But how…'

With a helpless headshake Hermione replied: 'It is quite a long story.'

Reluctantly McGonagall nodded: 'Well, I look forward to see what other things you four managed to pick up. But I believe it is time for your next class now.'

And it was. Actually, it was time for the class that they all had been looking forward to. Especially since they had learned about the prophecy. But defence against the dark arts turned out to be a disappointment. Professor Quirrel wore a strange purple turban and had a very irritating stutter. Beside that, for some reason his classroom smelled of garlic which was rather irritating. During their first class all he did was avoiding some questions about his own experiences and explaining how the class would mostly be focused on theory instead of actual spell work. Apparently he was afraid it would be dangerous if the students would actually fire curses and hexes.

On their third day they had their first astronomy classes, which looked interesting although none of them really understood why they would need to know the stars and planets. Hermione argued that it would most likely be useful in later years, but Susan seemed to think that the subject was only taught because it was a tradition.

They also had their first potion class. The potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls. But professor Snape also seemed to be rather distant. Even stern professor McGonagall had given the impression that she liked seeing new students, but Snape just seemed bored by it, although he actually talked with Draco Malfoy and his friends, Crabbe and Goyle, before the class started. Which was, in the opinion of Harry and his friends a point against the darkhaired teacher. They already had a few run-ins with the three Slytherins, who seemed to dislike the idea that two purebloods were hanging out with a muggleborn and a half-blood.

When Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class they noticed his cold black eyes. 'You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,' he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. 'As there is little foolish wand-waving, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as bit a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.'

Silence followed this little speech. Harry and Susan exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Hermione was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn't a dunderhead while Neville just looked bored by it all.

'Potter!' said Snape suddenly. 'What would I get if I added powered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?'

'A very potent sleeping potion known as the Draught of living death sir.' Harry politely replied after a short silence. Of course, Hermione's hand had immediately shot into the air after Snape finished his question. Neville's only a few seconds later. Still the potion master was barely able to hide his surprise when he heard Harry's answer. He guessed the man could not know that Harry's mother had taught him quite a bit about potions already.

'Let's try again. Potter, where would I look if I told you to find me a bezoar?'

'In the stomach of a goat or, more likely, in one of the cupboards in this room.' Harry dryly replied, at least this time he could answer immediately. For a long time Snape just looked at him. For a moment Harry thought he felt something against his occlumency shields, but it was such a light touch that he had most likely imagined it. Eventually he decided to fill the silence: 'My mother taught me quite a lot about potions sir.'

The man slowly blinked once before he replied. 'Yes, Lily was quite good at potions. I am glad to hear you paid attention to her lessons.' Then he slowly looked to first Hermione, then Neville. 'Did the two of you also receive home schooling?'

Neville nodded but Hermione shook her head. For a second Harry felt surprised at Hermione's denial. But then he realised that as a muggleborn home schooling would be strange. Most likely she had been warned by McGonagall's surprised reaction and had decided not to spread the knowledge about her own schooling too much. Since professor Snape was actually the head of the pureblood house of Slytherin it was a smart move. And technically seen she had never had any home schooling, instead she received almost all her early potion lessons at Lionfire Hall and a few at Longbottom manor.

'I see.' Snape slowly nodded before he continued in his silky voice: 'This might be interesting. Anyway, today we will make a simple potion that can cure boils. Instructions are on the board.' He lazily swished his wand and the instructions appeared. 'You will work in pairs and in silence.'

Harry grinned at Hermione when they turned to each other and started their preparations. It was the same potion that his mother had chosen for their first actual potion lesson. Of course, they had already received a couple hours explanation about how to prepare ingredients and how to use the equipment before that. For a moment he wondered how other students would manage without the extra preparation. But he could hardly help them when they were not allowed to talk.

Although the brewing was not too difficult Harry was still relieved when they could leave the dungeons. Not only was it cold and uncomfortable down there, he also had gotten a bit of a headache. And one or two more times he had thought he had felt a small touch against his occlumency shield. Probably just a result of his headache, but it was irritating none the less.

- Three weeks later -

During those first weeks they also had taken some time to get to know their fellow Gryffindor first years. Seamus Finnegan seemed to be a funny kind of guy, and Dean Thomas was nice enough as well although they all thought it was odd that he decorated his part of the dorm with a soccer poster instead of a quidditch poster. According to both Hermione and Susan the other girls were a different story. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were nice enough, but also very girly. Susan actually grimaced while she described how the two girls had talked about nail polish for over an hour.

Of course, they had already met Ron Weasley, and on Friday evening he was sitting next to them in front of the fireplace when Hermione said: 'You know, I have been thinking.'

'You have to stop saying that.' Neville replied and when she looked at him in surprise he continued: 'We already know, you are always thinking.'

Hermione somehow managed to scowl and smile at the same time in reply while the others chuckled. Well, the others beside Ron, who just looked confused. Eventually Harry said: 'What did you think of this time Hermione?'

'Well, you know how Quirrel seems a bit useless?' Hermione asked.

Harry nodded and Susan commented: 'Well, I don't know if I would call him useless.' They all looked at her in surprise and she explained: 'I know, the stutter is irritating. And it is a pain the he won't let us use our wands. But at least Binns has some competition in the worst teacher awards.'

'Right…' Hermione muttered, 'Anyway, since defence will be very important I was thinking we should try and practise the spells on our own.'

'Why do you think defence will be important?' Ron asked, 'I mean, you make it sound like it will be more important than transfiguration or so.'

Hermione blinked in surprise when she looked at him. She had obviously grown so accustomed to Ron that she had forgotten he knew nothing about the prophecy. Neville saved her: 'Our parents think that Voldemort will eventually return from the dead.'

Ron violently flinched when Neville said 'Voldemort'. They all looked at him in surprise when he asked with a shocked expression: 'You say you-know-who's name?'

'Why would he not?' Harry asked, and this time it was Susan who replied: 'Most wizards and witches are afraid to say Voldemort-' Ron flinched again, 'so instead they made up things like you-know-who or he who must not be named. Pathetic really.'

Ron looked upset at Susans last comment but Hermione nodded: 'I agree, why would you be afraid of a name? It does not make sense.'

They all looked at Ron to see if he had an answer. The redhead fidgeted uncomfortably before he replied: 'Look, I don't know why people are so afraid of his name. It is just the way it is you know?'

The other four looked at each other in wonder. None of the adults in their lives had ever shied away from the name Voldemort. But eventually Hermione shrugged: 'Whatever, anyway as I said before, defence will be pretty important if he returns.'

Ron nodded: 'I can see that.' Then he suddenly turned to Harry: 'Especially for you.' Harry looked at him in surprise, how on earth could Ron know that? But the redhead continued: 'I mean, since your parents were the one to kill him you-know-who will most likely try and get his revenge.'

'Exactly.' Harry quickly agreed. It was strange but useful that Ron saw the importance of defence for him without knowing anything about the prophecy. It was also a bit disturbing that he did not even question how Voldemort would be able to return back to the living. Apparently Voldemort had such a reputation that he just accepted the dark wizard would be able to do it somehow.

'So I was thinking we should practise the defence spells on our own.' Hermione repeated her earlier idea.

Harry nodded: 'It makes sense to me. But how? We can hardly start firing spells in the common room.'

'I know.' Hermione agreed, 'But if we make it a club and find a professor to sponsor it we will be allowed to use a classroom one evening a week.'

'How do you know that?' Neville wondered.

'It is in _Hogwarts: a history. _And I asked Ron's brother about it. You know, Percy the prefect.' Hermione explained.

'But you need a leader for a club like that.' Ron replied, 'I know because Fred and George once wanted to make a pranking club, but they could not decide which one of them should be the leader.'

'Beside that we did no know which teacher to ask for sponsorship.' The twins suddenly showed up behind Ron and had obviously heard the last part of their talk. One of them, Harry thought it was George but to be honest it was pure guesswork, looked at them sternly and asked: 'What kind of club are you creating?'

'We have to watch out for ickle Ronnykins you know.' Fred added.

Ron started to protest but Harry simply decided he did not know Rons other brothers well enough yet and so he changed the subject: 'Ron told me you two know about the marauders. How did you find out about them?'

There were two identical snapping noises when both twins whipped their heads towards Harry. Both also brushed a hand over their necks while they asked: 'What do you know about the marauders?'

'Oh no, I asked first.' Harry protested but the twins simply bent down, each of them grabbed one of Harry's arms and they simply pulled him away from their friends. Hermione and Neville both started to protest but Ron assured them that the twins would not harm Harry. They actually lifted Harry from the ground and marched him towards the third year dorm which had only four beds. They carefully placed Harry on the one closest to the door before they started talking again. Fred, or maybe George started with an unusually grave expression on his face: 'So young Harry, do tell us what you know about the marauders.'

Harry just grinned before he said: 'First tell me how you know about them.' When the twins seemed to hesitate he added: 'I have to be careful with their secrets, you know.'

Both twins shrugged and then one of them walked towards the next bed, opened the trunk next to it and pulled something out of it. He walked back to them and showed Harry an old but empty bit of parchment. Harry frowned and asked: 'Did you steal that out of Filch's office?'

The obvious look of surprise on both their faces was enough of an answer and Harry quickly pulled his mirror out of his shirt. With a quick engorgio it grew to a more useful size and he quickly whispered 'James' to it. A few seconds later the worried face of his dad appeared.

'Look dad! They found your parchment!' Harry almost shouted into the mirror while holding the mirror at an angel that would allow his father to see both Harry and the two redheaded twins who were watching at the small mirror in wonder. They almost stepped back when Harry's father laughed in relief before he replied from inside the mirror: 'Oh, for a second I thought you were in trouble already. But I see. Well done gentlemen. I trust you made good use of it?'

'We'd like to think so at least.' one twin started.

'Think so at least. But who are you?' the other continued.

'And what do you Know of this wondrous map?' twin one concluded.

Harry looked puzzled, a map? That sounded interesting.

Dad looked amused at the odd way the twins spoke, then he said: 'I am James Potter, also known as Prongs.'

The twins looked at the mirror, then at each other, then they both fell on their knees and shouted: 'We are not worthy!'

Dads laughter filled the empty third year dorm. When the two twins finally calmed down he said: 'I have to go, I was pretty busy when Harry called. But make a good impression on him and I make sure he invites you to our place during the summer vacation. You can meet some marauders then. And thanks for looking after the map for us, just keep it okay? From what your father told me about the two of you I am sure you make good use of it. And we are working on an improved version anyway. Bye Harry.'

The twins wanted to reply, but dad was already gone. And so they turned to Harry: 'Son of Prongs, command us!' one shouted.

Then they both bent down again and picked him up. Soon enough it was Harry's laughter that filled the room as the twins carried him around on their shoulders while asking all kind of questions about his dad.

_A/N: Well, at least a bit more time passed during this chapter… Ah well, I guess it makes sense that Harry's start at Hogwarts would receive a bit more attention. Oh, obviously I abused some of Rowlings work during this chapter, but I still do not own any rights to the Harry Potter universe;)_

_Let me know what you think about the chapter. Especially about Snape, I wanted him to be a bit less bitter since this time around he can not blame himself or Harry for Lily's death. But I figured he would still not be the nicest man ever, and he would still dislike teaching. And of course Harry will remind him about Lily and James, which can not be good… Beside that, he still has to play his double agent role. _

_So to reviews again:_

_Katzztar: I think it is more likely that I made a typo there. I can not really see why the spell check would change a word like Bones… Also it seems weird for me to hit u instead of e… they are not that close together :P Maybe my spell check changed to Dutch, it does that sometimes… _

_Teufel1987: Wow, long review ;) The 'thirty minute' scene only really starts when Hermione starts talking. So the part before it was just filling in the blanks between it. I guess it is a bit hard to tell since I write everything in past tense, but with my poor command of English I much prefer it this way;) Looking back I think I could have done without a scene break there. _

_You are right about the length of the train ride of course. Well beside that 7-730 would be eight hours after departure. I guess I could argue that the 'quidditch discussion' before the food cart arrived took almost six hours. But that seems like a lame excuse to me ;) I wonder what kind of magic they use to prevent a few hundred kids from destroying that train during such a long ride. I mean, there is no adult supervision or entertainment and all those young kids are apparently just happy to keep talking to each other for eight hours?_

_Voldemort treats might be a nice product for WWW later on, right next to U-no-poo ;)_

_Happylady1987: Thanks, and yes it is. But I felt it would be a shame to split the four of them up._

_Gaamundsen: Thanks! I'll do my best :) _

_ILikeComps: Yeah, I made a fifteen point list first ;) But as Hermione pointed out it all came back to those three items._

_TsukiyoTenshi: Well, Harry met the twins… Harry and his motley group will most likely do some pranking on their own. But I do not think they will develop in full time prankers like the marauders used to be. That could most likely fill a fanfic on itself, and I believe this one will be long enough without twenty chapters about pink-robed Snapes and aria singing Malfoys ;)_

_Man of Faith: Well, I have to say that when I read canon I sometimes think Harry and Hermione would fit into Slytherin. If you ignore Hermione being a muggleborn that is;) I believe your map question is answered._

_Centaurios: Cool, how many of those do I need for the big purple teddy bear?_

_Dancer4813: Thanks! Pretty odd that I could never find the name of Voldemort's orphanage and here you just tell me in a review… The part about the kids threatening the sorting hat was fun to write as well :)_

_Penny is wise: Thanks!_

_Guest: Nope, the map showed up rather soon;) Although Harry will have to wait for the summer vacation to receive his own map. _


	22. The DA

**The DA**

Once again the four of them were meeting in the first year's boys dormitory. In the two weeks since the Weasley twins had learned that Harry was a marauders son they had found it to be about the only place in Gryffindor tower where they could talk without interruptions. Well, according to Hermione and Susan the girls' dormitory was also rather quiet during the day, but after Neville slid down the stairs they found out that the boys' dormitory was their only chance. Of course, they had to look out that Ron, Seamus or Dean would not walk in. Not that they were doing anything illegal, but they preferred to keep their talks to themselves sometimes. Every now and then subjects came up that should remain secret, mainly the prophecy and all it involved. Beside that, it was just plain irritating to see Fred and George show up every five minutes with more questions about the marauders. Although Harry preferred those questions to their sudden bouts of cheerful helpfulness. The twins had taken his father's advice rather seriously, and they were determined to make a good impression on Harry now. He could only hope that they would calm down a bit soon. Beside that he thought that advice like 'Attack with your king! He won't expect that!' during a wizard chess match against Ron was hardly helping. Not that it really mattered against Ron, the redhead seemed to win every chess game he played.

Anyway, Hermione had called another meeting to talk about her defence club idea. And as soon as they were all seated on a few different beds she started: 'I made a list of all first year defence spells and a few second year ones that looked interesting.' She unrolled a very long roll of parchment and continued: 'Beside that, I think we should teach the others how to dodge and evade spells. Just like we were taught at Lionfire Hall.'

Neville practically ignored the list and asked: 'Are you sure it is a good idea to train everybody? I mean, some of them might use that training against us eventually. Not all dark wizards come from Slytherin.'

Hermione hesitated: 'I guess first year spells will not be that bad in the end. But I am not sure about the dodging… What do you think Harry?'

Harry was a bit surprised by the question: 'I don't know. Can we count on it that most will fight on our side?'

There was a short silence until Susan commented: 'I once asked my auntie why there were more death eaters then aurors. She explained to me that there are many more good wizards than evil ones, but most of the good ones have less interest in fighting. So that is why they try to avoid it instead of helping the aurors.'

They all thought about that for a while. Then Harry said: 'As long as most of the people we train will fight with us instead of against us it will be worth it. Right?'

They all nodded and Hermione rolled up her list again while she said: 'Anyway, I made up a list of the spells that we want to practise this year. Now we just need to ask professor McGonagall to sponsor us. Or at least, Harry should do that.'

'Wait! Why me?' Harry protested immediately, to which Hermione rolled her eyes and simply replied: 'Well, because you are our leader of course.'

'That does not make sense.' Harry replied, 'You should be our leader, it is your idea after all. And you made that list.'

Now she smiled: 'Thanks Harry, but you are the one the prophecy is about… Beside that, I am starting to get the feeling that some people would prefer not to join a club that is run by a muggleborn.'

Susan grimly nodded: 'I am afraid you are right. Although most of those people are in Slytherin, and I think we should keep them out of the club for now.'

'All of them?' Neville asked.

They all considered that for a few seconds until Harry replied: 'For now at least, we can always see if we want to invite a few of them later on.'

The others nodded and suddenly Hermione laughed: 'See, you are our leader!'

Susan and Neville chuckled as well and Harry slowly shook his head: 'Alright, I am okay with it. But I will tell everybody who joins us that we run this thing with the four of us.'

Again Hermione smiled and Neville asked: 'So, you want to teach them about the dodges and stuff as well?'

'I think so.' Harry nodded, 'But let's forget about occlumency and animagus training. And even the other magical exercises we practised back at home. Just curses, hexes, shields and dodging. But maybe we should ask our parents if we can spread the lessons about dodging?'

'That is a good idea!' Hermione enthusiastically replied. She reached for her necklace, but Neville was faster and with two engorgio's he changed his own mirror into the size of a small television screen before he said: 'Mask!'

Immediately Sirius' face showed up. He looked at each of them in turn before he grinned: 'Hey kiddo's, you do not really look like you are in trouble? Just wanted to speak with your favourite teacher?'

Susan had to correct that: 'We did not know you would answer Sirius.'

Sirius actually pouted at that and Hermione continued: 'We are thinking of forming a defence club, and we were wondering if we can teach the other kids about dodging and stuff like that.'

Harry's dogfather blinked a few times: 'A defence club? Why?'

'Because the defence teacher won't let us do magic in his class. We want to practise the spells from the book.' Harry explained.

Sirius slowly nodded: 'I can understand that. I used to hate it when teachers didn't allow us to use our wands.' He looked thoughtful for a few moments: 'I'll have to discuss it with the others, but they are in training right now… But for now I would say that you can teach them how to dodge… Just stay away from the more advanced magical stuff and from the things you learned about tactics… How are you going to recruit members?'

'It will be invite only.' Hermione replied, 'But we plan on inviting the other Gryffindor first years. And most likely the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws as well. We do not really expect the higher years to be interested.'

'No Slytherins huh?' Sirius wanted to know, and then he suddenly grimaced: 'I can not believe I am saying this, but if you can find a few friends in Slytherin it might be worth it to invite them. They are not all bad you know.'

'Yeah we do.' Harry nodded, 'Mum often talked about a friend she had in Slytherin, although she never told me a name. But for now we barely know the Slytherins.' He thought of Malfoy and his two big friends and added: 'And the ones that we have gotten to known will not be invited.'

Sirius had grimaced again at the mention of mum's mysterious Slytherin friend. He wondered why nobody ever mentioned his name. But then Sirius said: 'Anyway, I guess you are going for an official club? When will the first meeting be?'

Harry shrugged: 'Somewhere next week I guess. If we get approval of course.'

'I see. Well, good luck with that.' Sirius replied, 'I will discuss it with the others and we will contact you during the weekend alright?' Harry nodded and Sirius continued: 'I do not think the dodges will be a problem, it is not really a secret. I mean, every defence teacher should mention sometime how some curses are much easier evaded than shielded. But most wizards just prefer to rely on their magic instead of on their bodies.'

'My parents always say that most wizards are lazy.' Neville added with a smile.

Sirius barked a laugh: 'Well, they have a point. Do not tell Minnie I said that, she would not believe it. Anyway, is there anything else I can help you with? I need to finish reading this.' He held up a magazine called _Transfiguration Today,_ 'Lily insists that we do something useful while manning the central mirror…'

Harry saw Hermione's eyes shining about the idea of a transfiguration magazine and he quickly interrupted her reply: 'Nah, we are fine. Good luck with the magazine.'

'Thanks. I'll need it.' Sirius dryly replied before his image disappeared.

Neville resized his mirror to its original size. Then Hermione quickly scribbled Harry's name on top of the list before she said: 'Oh, we still need a name for our club. I can not believe that we did not discuss that before.'

They all looked at each other before Susan giggled: 'Let's call it the new marauders. Sirius would love it!'

Neville chuckled: 'Yeah, but we can forget sponsorship from McGonagall if we do that.'

With a shrug Harry said: 'Why not keep it simple? The Defence Club?'

The others thought about it for a few seconds. Then Hermione said: 'A bit too simple if you ask me. Maybe the Defence Association? After all, if we really get a new defence teacher every year we might want to keep our club running for all seven years that we are here.'

'But the Defence Association is so long!' Susan complained.

Hermione shrugged: 'Then we call it the DA for short.'

They all agreed and Hermione wrote 'The Defence Association' below Harry's name before she handed the large roll of parchment to him. He accepted it and asked: 'What do I need to do with it?'

'Take it to professor McGonagall and ask her for a sponsorship of course.' Hermione explained as if that was the most obvious thing of the world.

'Wha- me?'

'Well, you are our leader after all.' Hermione simply replied. For a few seconds Harry just looked at her in wonder. Only a few minutes ago she had practically forced him to accept that role and now she made it look like it was his choice. After a while he simply shook his head, stood up and marched out of the dormitory without another word.

It was already past dinner when they started their talk inside the boys dormitory, and although Harry did not have a watch he guessed it was not that long until curfew. So he hurried through the empty halls of Hogwarts towards the Transfiguration corridor. It was strange to see the halls without masses of students, in fact this was the first time that he was all alone in those hallways. And he had to admit to himself that the hallways looked a lot friendlier by day. Although there was a torch after every few feet the light was poor at best. A few times Harry almost jumped away from his own shadow.

Just when he finally convinced himself to stop acting so childish a door to his left suddenly opened and this time he really jumped away form the sudden movement. He looked up to see professor Quirrell looking at him in surprise: 'P-p-potter? What are y-y-you doing out of t-t-the c-c-common room at t-t-this time?'

'Oh, I am just going to professor McGonagall's office.' Harry replied when his heart stopped beating.

'D-d-does she k-k-know you are c-c-coming?' Quirrell stuttered on.

'Well, no not really. But I just have to ask her something.' Harry wondered if he had made a mistake when Quirrel's hand started to move towards his wand. He looked around and saw another figure approaching: 'Oh, hello professor Snape, how are you doing?'

Snape shot him an odd look, most likely surprised by his relieved tone: 'Potter? Shouldn't you be in your common room?'

'I just have to visit professor McGonagall first sir.' Harry replied quickly.

'Well, be on your way then.' Snape waved him on impatiently and Harry obeyed immediately. Had Quirrell's hand really moved towards his wand before Snape arrived? Or was it just his imagination? He could not really see why a teacher would pull his wand against him, but he could not explain the movement any other way. Although he guessed that it could be another nervous tic next to the irritating stutter.

Before he knew it he was in front of McGonagall's office and after a knock he heard her voice call: 'Come in!'

Harry entered and looked around curiously, he had not been here before. The office was sparsely decorated, with only a few simple wooden chairs in front of a large wooden desk. Professor McGonagall was seated behind the desk that was filled with large piles of paper on a much more comfortable looking dark red chair. Beside that there only was a simple fireplace and a simple dark closet. The professor looked over her glasses and said: 'Mr. Potter? To what do I owe the pleasure?'

Harry nervously shifted his foot and held up the parchment: 'We were thinking of forming a club. And we would like to ask you for a sponsorship.'

She accepted the parchment and rolled it open. 'Hmm… The Defence Association? Why would you want a defence club?'

'Well, we are not allowed to practise our spells during defence class. You know, not like we can do in transfiguration and charms. And so we thought we should practise them in our own time.' Harry tried to explain, forgetting most of Hermione's well thought out arguments.

His head of house slowly nodded: 'I see. But sadly I can not help you. You see, a club like this that focuses on one of the subjects can only be sponsored by the teacher of that subject.'

'Oh.' Was Harry's disappointed reply, before he added: 'I do not think professor Quirrell would like that.'

Professor McGonagall almost showed a smile at that: 'No, neither do I… I think this is a good idea, but as I said, I can not help you. Maybe the headmaster can though.'

That cheered Harry up. It was a long time ago that Dumbledore had visited Lionfire Hall, but he always thought the headmaster was a nice person. 'I'll try that then!' He enthusiastically replied, before he added: 'Although I do not know where I can find his office.'

Now McGonagall actually smiled: 'Your father would be disappointed. Anyway, let me show you. I have to hand over a few of those papers anyway.'

Harry nodded while the professor gathered some papers. In truth, he was quite happy about the escort. He still had the feeling that Quirrell's reaction had been a bit odd, although he was not sure why he thought so. He could not imagine why the defence teacher would have anything against him.

They walked back to the seventh floor, and McGonagall gestured for him to stop in front of an ugly gargoyle statue. She turned towards the thing and said: 'Sugar quill.'

Harry blinked in surprise when the gargoyle stepped aside. The wall behind it split in two and revealed a circling stone stairway that seemed to move up automatically. Just like the escalators he had seen in muggle malls the few times that they had visited them. Although those usually were straight, and not made of stone. The two of them stepped on the stairway and it brought them to a set of oak doors with a large brass knocker in the shape of a griffin. But before any of them could touch it a voice called: 'Enter!'

Professor McGonagall opened the door and the two of them walked into a beautiful circular office. The room was very different from professor McGonagalls office. A large number of portraits decorated the wall, and all kinds of odd instruments were spread around over a few small tables. Beside that there were books everywhere and to Harry's surprise there was also a perch, on it sat a spectacular red and gold bird. He looked at it for a few seconds before he exclaimed: 'Oh, wow! A phoenix?'

He blushed when a soft chuckle replied to his words and turned around to see the headmaster sitting in a high backed chair behind a large claw footed desk. 'Yes Harry. Fawkes is a phoenix. In fact, he is the phoenix that provided the feather for your wand. Mr. Ollivander informed me about it when you bought it.'

'Really?' Harry wondered, and when the headmaster simply nodded he turned back to the phoenix and said: 'Thank you Fawkes, I really like it.'

The phoenix thrilled happily and Harry grinned before turning back once more and becoming serious: 'So, that means he also provided the feather for Voldemort's wand?'

The smile on Dumbledore's face disappeared while professor McGonagall loudly gasped for air. Then the headmaster said: 'Ah, he told you about that? Do not worry too much about it Harry, there is no telling if it has any significance or if it is a mere coincidence.'

Harry nodded, his parents had said more or less the same when he bought his wand. Dumbledore conjured another chair to accompany the single one that was in front of his desk and waved for them to take a seat. As soon as they were seated he said: 'I am sure you two did not come here to discuss Fawkes though.'

'No.' Professor McGonagall said before she handed Hermione's scroll and the pile of papers from her own desk to the headmaster. He looked a bit puzzled and she explained: 'The papers should be signed by you before I can send them, but Mr. Potter gave me the scroll. He asked me for sponsorship for his club, but sadly I can not help him.'

Dumbledore opened the scroll and quickly read to it before he said: 'Why do you want to form a defence club Harry?'

Once again Harry explained his reasons, and when he finished it was actually McGonagall who spoke: 'I thought it was a good idea, especially since our defence teachers seem to get replaced every year.' After Dumbledore nodded she continued: 'On a side note, do you two know each other already? Usually you do not call a student by his first name.'

'I used to visit Lionfire Hall quite often.' Dumbledore easily replied, 'Although I admit my last visit was a bit more than two years ago.' He was silent for a few seconds before he continued: 'Anyway, about this club, I guess you do not want to ask professor Quirrell for his help?'

Harry simply shook his head and again professor McGonagall spoke up: 'Beside that, he would just need another sponsor next year. It would be easier if you can sponsor it Albus.'

The headmaster nodded: 'Very well then, there are a few conditions though.'

Harry looked up and as soon as Dumbledore was sure he got his attention he said: 'First, I want you to be careful. The first years defence spells are not that dangerous, but still. I would be comforted if you could find a few older students to help you.'

'I think I know two third years that might want to help.' Harry replied, thinking about the Weasley twins.

Dumbledore looked a bit surprised at that, but he continued: 'That's good to hear. Beside that, I hope your club will be open to all students that show interest.' He had emphasized the 'all' and Harry knew he meant the Slytherins by that. However, he chose to misunderstand and said: 'Hermione seems to think the higher years will not be interested anyway. But we will listen to everyone who wants to join.'

The headmaster nodded: 'Alright then. Lastly, I hope you do not mind if I or professor McGonagall check in on you sometime.'

Harry shrugged: 'I guess not. So we are allowed to form a club then?'

In answer Dumbledore picked up a large gold quill, dipped it into a silver ink pot and signed his name on the roll of parchment. 'Yes you are. Congratulations. And maybe professor McGonagall can offer you the use of her classroom?'

His head of house nodded in agreement: 'Would Thursday evening work for you Mr. Potter?'

Harry just nodded, he barely registered what else the professors discussed before he was escorted back to the common room by professor McGonagall. He was too happy that it had actually worked.

The next Thursday Harry, Hermione, Neville and Susan practically ran towards the transfiguration classroom after wolfing down their meals. Once inside they started to push the desks and chairs towards the wall to create a large open area in the middle of the room. The four of them could not help and start practising immediately. Within seconds they were firing tickling charms at each other. It was a rather innocent charm, which would make its victim laugh uncontrollably. According to Hermione it was a safe charm for their first club meeting.

Of course it made for a bit of a weird situation when the first people arrived and found the four of them rolling on the floor laughing. It did not help that it were the Weasley twins, who had agreed to attend the club meetings when Harry asked them, and their brother Ron. After a few seconds spent laughing and teasing the twins remembered the promise they had made to Harry's father. And with a few mumbled 'finite incantatems' the four club leaders were able to breathe freely again. Of course, Hermione and Neville immediately jumped towards the twins and forced the knowledge about the spell out of them.

Meanwhile Harry and Susan talked with Ron and welcomed the other new arrivals when they showed up. First Harry's dorm mates arrived; Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas. A bit later the Gryffindor girls walked in as well. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were actually accompanied by Parvati's sister Padma and one of her Ravenclaw friends. It took Harry a few seconds to remember the name of the Chinese girl; Su Li. She was a very short but pretty girl.

Since by now everybody who had been invited had arrived Harry coughed a few times. Soon everybody fell silent and he said: 'Hey all, welcome to the first meeting of the Defence Association. Or the DA for short. We are going to practise the spells from the defence against the dark arts spell list here and will also work on how to duel.'

Dean raised his hand, Harry was tempted to say this was not a class but he figured it was actually a good way to keep order. So he just nodded to Dean who asked: 'What do you know about duelling?'

Harry nodded, it was a fair question to ask another first year after all. 'My parents were very good aurors. So were Neville's, and Susans aunt and her husband know a lot about duelling as well. They all gave us a bit of training before we came to Hogwarts. We hope to share some of it with you. Of course, we will have to find out a lot of it as we go.'

'And you have our experience to draw from.' Fred or George commented pompously.

Dean snorted: 'I can live with Harry's answer, but what do you two know about duelling? I mean, all you do is prank.'

The other twin, Harry was almost sure it was George, replied: 'If you pranked as many Slytherins as we did you would make sure you'd know your duelling spells.'

Again Dean snorted: 'Fair enough.'

Nobody commented and Harry picked up again: 'We thought of practising the rictumsempra charm today. Remember, it is a wand movement like this.' He showed the wand movement and continued: 'So I guess we will split up in pairs and take turns shooting at each other.'

This time Padma's hand shot up: 'Why do we shoot at each other? I mean, it is not like we can protect ourselves already.'

'I expect you to try and dodge the spell. That way we both practise our aim as our dodging.' Harry explained.

'Dodging?'

'Yeah… you know, jumping away from the spell?' Harry tried.

Padma nodded impatiently: 'Of course I know what the word means. It is just that I thought spells should be shielded not dodged.'

Harry shrugged and Hermione helped him: 'Not all spells can be shielded, so practising how to dodge is a good idea.'

'Beside that, it saves your magical energy.' Susan added.

'And it keeps your wand free to return fire.' Neville concluded.

Padma looked a bit impressed by the barrage of answers so Harry asked: 'Fred, George? Can you two use those finite spells on anybody who has been hit?'

'Your wish is our command!' Fred shouted happily.

Minutes later four pairs were exchanging tickling charms. Next to them Harry, Susan and Neville had formed a trio and were firing at each other in random intervals. All around the classroom people were firing and dodging and laughing when they got hit. About an hour later Harry had to shout to get their attention again and he said: 'That was really good! But it is almost curfew, so we should call it a day. Same time next week! And if you know anyone else who may be interested tell one of us.' He pointed to himself, Hermione, Susan and Neville.

The vast majority of the group walked back towards Gryffindor tower, all of them were rather enthusiastic about the meeting. And the twins even said they were going to teach the finite incantatem spell to all the others so they could join as well the next time.

_A/N: A bit of a slow update, but at least with over 4k words it is long;) I hope you will enjoy it. On a side note, does anyone know where I can find out what spells are taught in the first year?_

_So, on to reviews again._

_Teufel1987: Kids must be different in Holland;) Yeah, I think I read too much fanfics that involved twin speech… I was rereading part of the philosopher's stone and noticed that they do not talk like that in the books. So I happily gave it up because it was a pain to write :P I honestly thought it was canon when I was writing that chapter… now I guess they just had to many butterbeers during that chapter… Maybe I'll edit it sometime._

_Alaskanking: Thanks. And I am sure astronomy has its uses. But I can't have Harry being enthusiastic about every class;) I mean, he is not Hermione._

_MAFITA: I thought it was you, the kisses gave you away. And glad to hear that you liked what I did to Snape._

_Happylady: Yeah, he is still unlikely to win the nicest teacher award. And, as I said a few times before, I try and stick to canon where I can._

_Guest #1: Thanks, good to hear._

_Ladywatertiger: Thanks. I tend to keep the physical descriptions low since I think most people already have an image of the characters. This way you can 'see' the movie characters or your own book images while reading;) Oh, and Harry did not really realise that Snape was using legilimency. He does not have that much experience with it yet._

_Taeniaea: Hehe, it was a fun part to write as well:) _

_ILikeComps: Hm, I guess there are still a lot of good teachers next to those three. Beside that it may be a status thing, or maybe parents are just happy to see their magical offspring spent most of their puberty outside the house ;)_

_Guest #2: He already managed to pull them into the DA;) And Snape will be a bit less hostile towards Harry. I guess he will still try to save him if he sees Harry in mortal peril. But since Neville is more confident and better with a broom this time around the remembrall incident never happened, so Harry did not make the quidditch team and will evade the bucking broom. So no chance yet to check on Snape's actions there;)_

_Ower: Yeah, there are some good fanfics with Harry and his friends being extremely talented. But I think this is more realistic._

_RRW:  Hmm, not sure about that. I do not think Lily already knows that Snape was the one to betray them. And although I think Snape is a very brave man I am not sure if he has the guts to go tell Lily that it was him who set Voldemort on her son…_

_Anonwilson: Again, I do not think the parents already know that it was Snape who told Voldemort about the prophecy. They know he is a former death eater of course, I am sure that made the newspapers;) _

_TsukiyoTenshi: How about today?;)_

_Penny is Wise: That would be an anticlimax… Voldemort got destroyed after a very difficult fight and then the world explodes because the twins and the marauders did something stupid :D_

_Guest #3: What is Wayne's World?:P As to the twin speech, see the reply I gave to Teufel1987. I admit it was a bit of a stupid mistake of me, but as I said, to many fanfics… I can't really imagine dropping a story after 21 chapters for minor things like this. But it's your choice._


	23. Inviting the headmaster

**Inviting the headmaster**

James looked up from his book when Lily walked into the living room. He immediately stood up when he saw the worried look on her face. 'What's wrong Lily?'

She hesitated a few seconds before she answered: 'I think we made a mistake. Do you mind if I ask Albus to join us?'

James tried to hide his surprise. It must be serious if Lily wanted to contact the headmaster. Although they had never stopped working with Dumbledore the relationship between the headmaster and the group around the Potters had cooled down during the last few years. And especially Lily tried to avoid the old man's long-winded discussions. James just nodded: 'Do you want to ask the others as well?'

'No, Remus is with Mask at the moment. And that mirror should be occupied, especially while Dumbledore is out of Hogwarts.' Lily replied, 'And we can tell the others later, maybe I am just imagining things.'

Again he nodded, it was clear that she did not think so. He simply said: 'Well, if you invite the headmaster I will ask Timmy for a few drinks.'

As soon as he turned around he saw a small plate filled with coffee, tea, butterbeer and scones appear. He grinned, now that Harry was out of the house the two elves were often bored and they spoiled James and Lily by listening in to what they needed. Of course, since their days were usually filled with training and reading they did not need that much attention. He quickly shoved his book under one of the chairs, it was an autobiography written by a dark wizard called Bastiran who was sentenced to life in Azkaban a few centuries ago. Although it was disturbing at times it also offered a lot of insight in what kind of spells an evil wizard could use during a duel. He hoped it would eventually explain how the dark wizard had fought against the dementor effect long enough to write the book. Right now, he was only halfway through the book, so it would take a while. Still, he had already learned a lot. But James figured the conservative headmaster would not approve of the book, so it was easier to just hide it for a while.

A few seconds later Lily moved back from the fireplace, immediately she was followed by the headmaster who smiled genially and said: 'Hello James, Lily told me there was a problem? I hope it has nothing to do with Harry?'

'Not that I know of. But Lily has not really informed me yet.' James admitted while gesturing towards the stuffed leather chairs. He added a pointed finger towards the tea service that Timmy had provided: 'Help yourself.'

Lily was distracted: 'How is Harry doing?'

Albus chuckled: 'Just fine. A few weeks ago he actually started a defence club.'

'Yeah, he told us all about it.' Lily smiled, 'Apparently it is growing rather fast. Even some second and third years have joined.'

'Oh? That is good to hear.' The headmaster replied while picking up one of the scones, 'So this is not about Harry then?'

James chuckled: 'The only complaint that Harry has about Hogwarts so far is that the Gryffindor seeker is not too good. He is determined to try out next year.'

Albus also laughed: 'I remember how Harry used to fly on his birthdays. I think we should not tell Minerva about it, she always gets so excited about quidditch and will most likely pester me about lifting the first year rule.'

They all smiled at that before Lily suddenly turned serious: 'Albus, I think we made a mistake with the prophecy.' All mirth immediately disappeared from Dumbledore's face and she continued: 'You know how William said that Voldemort would possess one of the Hogwarts teachers to steal the philosopher's stone? And how you and the Flamels decided to have it destroyed instead?'

Albus nodded: 'Yes, of course. It seems to have worked, but just to be sure I checked all of the teachers for possession just before the school year. And I asked some of the older students to report to me if any teacher would act confused or forgetful, two of the most obvious signs of possession. But they only tell me about professor Binns…'

James felt a wave of relief pass through him. Ghosts were impossible to possess. He figured that Lily had been worried that Voldemort would still infiltrate Hogwarts. But his wife still looked worried: 'That is good to hear Albus. But I think it is safe to say that Voldemort will not come close to Hogwarts while you are there. I mean, the philosopher's stone would lure him there, but without an obvious goal he would be foolish to risk it…'

With a short nod the headmaster agreed: 'It is true that he used to avoid me if he had the chance. So what is it that worries you? I can assure you that Harry should be safe this year.'

Lily shook her head impatiently: 'That is not the point. I just realised that if Voldemort is strong enough to possess a Hogwarts teacher by now he is also strong enough to do something else.' Both men looked at her in confusion and she continued: 'Isn't it obvious? Voldemort has been slowly recovering for years, but now he is strong enough to act. It is more than likely that he is doing something, but because we removed his original goal we have no idea what he is doing.'

James softly cursed and after a few seconds Dumbledore said: 'You are right of course. Although I am not sure how many options Voldemort actually has right now. Still, it would be unwise to expect him to just skip this year and wait for the original timeline to pick up… You said that you have just studied William's foretelling again Lily?'

Lily nodded, 'Yes, I was looking at it again this morning.'

'Could you summarize what we know of Voldemort's actions until he recovers an actual body in Harry's fourth year?' Albus asked.

After a short hesitation Lily said: 'Actually, we do not know that much. We know what should have happened during this year, but it seems we evaded that. After that Voldemort himself only returns during the fourth year. In second year Harry has to fight one of his horcruxes and some kind of monster though. And third year was about Sirius escaping Azkaban, which of course is not going to happen this time.'

After a long and thoughtful pause Dumbledore replied: 'I believe you are right Lily. We have no way to tell what Voldemort's wraith is doing right now. I do not think we will be in immediate danger, because even for a formidable wizard like Voldemort there will not be that many chances to find a victim both willing and strong enough to possess. I am ashamed to say that I almost hope second year will turn out as predicted.'

James silently agreed. A monster in Hogwarts was a terrible idea. But at least it would confirm that William's warnings were still useful. When nobody talked he asked: 'So, what do we do now?'

Lily shrugged: 'I guess there is not much we can do? Beside keeping our eyes open of course.'

Dumbledore nodded: 'Yes, I think that is true. We still have to find four of the horcruxes. And I guess I will reactivate the Order of the Phoenix and ask its members to look out for signs that might lead us to Voldemort's wraith. Will you join again?'

James and Lily exchanged a long look before James replied: 'I do not think we have the time for that next to our training. But if the Order ever needs a few extra wands in a fight you can count on us.'

Reluctantly the headmaster agreed: 'I can see how important your training is for you. And in fact, I compliment you on it. But it is a shame that we will not see you during the Order meetings.'

James privately disagreed. Those meetings were boring. But there was no reason to hurt Albus' feelings. After finishing another scone the headmaster asked: 'Is there anything else? Otherwise I will head back to Hogwarts, I have a meeting with the board to prepare.'

'No, I think we are fine.' Lily replied, 'I just wanted to discuss this. But I am glad to hear that you think there is no immediate need to worry.'

With a shrug Albus stood up: 'As I said, even Voldemort can not do that much as a wraith. He will need some help at least, if I remember alright it was Peter Pettigrew who helped him during the original timeline?'

'Yes. After the rat was scared away when Sirius and Remus found him.' James angrily replied. Even after all those years he was still mad at his supposed friend.

Albus looked thoughtful: 'We can only hope Peter remains in hiding for now. And of course we should prevent him from escaping again.'

Both Potters nodded in agreement at that, and after a quick goodbye the headmaster helped himself to some floo powder and disappeared back to Hogwarts.

As soon as the man left James turned to his wife and asked: 'So, you think everything is alright now?'

Lily hesitated: 'I am not sure. I hope Albus is right and that Voldemort's wraith does not have too many options to alter the time flow. But I can not help but worry.' James hugged her close to him and after a while she whispered: 'Do you think we can go and talk to Harry? You know? Just to be sure?'

'Of course we can. His classes should be finished by now.' James replied before he pulled his mirror necklace out of his shirt. With a silent spell he enlarged it before he said his son's name. Lily was already starting to fidget nervously before Harry's face finally showed up after a few minutes: 'Hey dad, and hey mum! Sorry it took so long, but I was just talking with Justin Finch-Fletchley.'

'Who?' Was James rather intelligent reply.

'Oh, he is a Hufflepuff first year that joined the DA a few weeks ago.' Harry explained, 'We are trying to check all new members to see if they are trustworthy. But it is rather difficult, so we just try not to inform them about things like the mirrors until we know them better.'

'I see, that makes sense.' James agreed and Lily asked: 'So, the DA is going alright then? How many members do you have by now?'

Harry looked thoughtful for a while: 'A bit over thirty I think. All first years from Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and a few second years. Oh, and Fred and George actually brought two other third years this week; Lee Jordan and Alicia Spinnet. She is one of the Gryffindor chasers.'

'Impressive.' Lily smiled, 'Do you still fit in McGonagall's classroom?'

'Barely.' Harry dryly replied, 'And when she checked up on us a week ago and learned that Fred and George were the third years supposed to watch us she said she would consider a new training area.'

James chuckled: 'I think I would like those twins.' He saw Lily's disapproving look but did not give her a chance: 'So, everything is alright over there?'

Harry nodded and because he actually moved his mirror with the nod it was a bit nauseating. 'Yeah, everything is great. What about you?'

Again they exchanged a look, and James had to admit that he was once again going to fail. They had promised each other to keep Harry informed about all developments around Voldemort, but it was hard to ruin their son's good mood at a moment like this. Beside that, it was not like something had actually happened, and so he just replied: 'We are fine as well. We just wanted to talk with you for a second.'

'Oh.' Harry paused, 'Wait, maybe you can help me out.'

They just looked at him and he continued: 'It's Susan's birthday in a few weeks, and the three of us wanted to give her a large parcel of Honeydukes chocolate. She said she was a bit sad that she could not get any of it on the Hogwarts express. But we are not sure how to get it without her noticing.'

James shrugged: 'Easy enough, send Hedwig over and we will ask her to bring it to your dormitory.'

Harry looked thoughtful: 'You should make sure that she delivers it at morning. The girls are in here a lot during the evenings.'

'Oh?' James asked with a suggestively raised eyebrow. But Harry was apparently too young to understand what his father meant and Lily simply elbowed him. She took over while he gasped for breath: 'How big should it be Harry?'

Harry hesitated: 'I do not really know. Hermione mentioned something about a large box with all kinds of chocolates? Susan usually shares her candy with us, so I think it should be a very large box. You know, otherwise she won't have anything left for herself.'

Lily smiled at the obvious benefits for Harry and the others of a larger box that their son just forgot to mention: 'I will take care of it. Just send Hedwig over. Oh, and attach a letter, otherwise it looks odd.'

With a confused expression Harry replied: 'But Susan knows about the mirrors anyway.'

'It is not Susan that I am worried about.' Lily replied.

'Alright…' Harry replied, then he turned away from the mirror: 'Someone is coming, I'll speak with you later okay?'

'Of course dear.' Was all Lily managed to say before Harry's face disappeared from the mirror.

The two elder Potters grinned at each other at the sudden departure. Then James said: 'Well, with the excitement out of the way I guess I have to go back to my book.'

Lily smiled: 'Oh, come on, admit that you like this book at least.'

She had been arguing that James liked to read. And while he had to admit that some of the books that he had studied, including this one, were rather interesting he still had an image to uphold. Otherwise Sirius would be disappointed with him: 'Of course not. Reading is boring!'

Again Lily smiled, rather knowingly: 'Whatever you say dear. Anyway, I think I will go back to my research. Let me know if your book says anything interesting about the imperius.'

He nodded. Lily was trying to create a potion that would offer resistance against the imperius curse. Of course, common knowledge said that there were no defences against the unforgivable curses, but she thought different. And at least, at Lionfire Hall she got the chance to use her brains for a goal like this. In the outside world most potion companies were much too conservative for research like this. Or, like Lily put it herself: 'That bunch of stuffed-up mummies would not recognize a new potion if it blasted their noses off.'

After a quick peck on Lily's cheek James hurried back to his book. He wanted to know how Bastiran would fare in his next fight against the aurors.

_A/N: I figured James needed some attention again… Next chapter will be from Harry's viewpoint again. I think there will be James-chapters between every few Harry-chapters from now on. But that is not set in stone yet. According to my publisher I use too many different characters in my own story, so maybe I should practise in here and forget about the James-chapters ;)_

_A lot of reviews this time. If you guys keep on going like this I really need to think of another way to reply to them.._

_Slytherinlover143: Thanks, I will check that story. And remember that Harry is only a first year yet, he is not going to win the Hogwarts duelling cup just yet;) As I said before, he is not going to be some kind of invincible superhero, but he won't be mediocre either… I think your other review got answered in this chapter._

_Taenaeia: Thanks, it's fun to think about how characters would behave just a bit differently in this timeline._

_Guest #1: Thanks._

_Guest #2: I hope I will manage to keep you interested._

_Guest #3 (Happylady?): Well, hope you do not mind too much that I moved away from Hogwarts for this chapter ;)_

_Mwinter1: Here you go;) _

_Teufel1987: Dumbledore would most likely be all in favour, second chances and all that. Of course, then McGonagall should suggest to let the twins loose on his office… _

_TsukiyoTenshi: Done!_

_Katzztar: Yeah, fooled me at least;) But I am happy it is not like that in canon, it is a pain to write twinspeak. And I like to keep the twins involved. _

_Guest #4: I actually thought about writing a oneshot about that wedding proposal, but never really found the time… Maybe some day._

_Potterphile:_ _I am going to try and reply to all your reviews in one go;) As to the spelling suggestions, I'll try to edit them, it is a bit hard with the older chapters though. The Grangers were most likely a bit overwhelmed when they heard about the goblins… In my story the Grangers do not really know the full extent of the wizarding war, so they are unlikely to suggest laser tracking and all that. So for muggle weaponry we will have to rely on whatever Lily (who of course left the muggle world as a eleven year old girl) knows about it;)_

_Guest #5 (MAFITA?): Yeah, the DA is not really an underground movement this time, which will most likely increase it numbers. _

_X-marks-the-spot1974: Thanks!_

_Guest #6: I think Dumbledore always supported the idea of house unity, he just never was really forceful in applying it. Just like here in fact, he does not tell Harry: 'You will accept Slytherins, otherwise I will not support your club.' He only mentions something about it…_

_Love-Pink26: Ron will be one of their more visible friends. But I am afraid the 'best-friend-spot' has been taken already. Oh, and thanks for the link, it looks promising:)_

_Rori Potter: I used to reply with my update schedule to reviews like this, but I have to admit that I kinda had to give up on it. I am still trying to update once or twice a week though._

_ : Thanks! I am trying to stick to canon and make all differences 'logical' results of the foreknowledge… As to your own story, I'll put it on my (way to long) to-read-list… In general I think the best tip I can give is to simply write and pay attention to your reviewers;) Oh, and I have to admit browsing through a 'how-to-write-book' worked for me, not that I literally took things out of it, but it helps you think about your own writing. I can look up what book I used if you want, but I guess there are many other books just as useful;)_

_RRW: Yup, so I will not tell you yet;) Although I think there are already some pointers about the Harry-Slytherin relation in the story…_


	24. Newcomers

**Newcomers**

December had just arrived and Harry and Susan were quickly walking back towards the castle, eager to leave the cold air behind them. They had just watched the Gryffindor quidditch team practise. Harry was sure he would be able to take the seeker's spot next year, but Susan was a lot less confident about taking one of the beater spots. Not only because the two Weasley twins were very good beaters, but also because their teamwork was amazing. And of course, the twins were becoming rather good friends of them. Just like their younger brother Ron, so Susan was not sure if she really wanted to compete against them. It was a good thing that Hermione and Neville were not that interested in quidditch, since all other positions were also taken by good and young players. Only the seeker, Cormac McLaggen, was a bit of a disappointment. Apparently the second year Gryffindor had first applied for the keeper spot and had reluctantly agreed to play seeker when no one else was available. But the boy was much too large to be a good seeker, and he seemed to pay more attention to the other players than to actually finding the snitch. Fred and George had actually complained about him a few times, and Harry was somewhat happy that Cormac was one of the few second year Gryffindors that had not yet asked to join the DA.

Their quidditch discussion was interrupted when two girls approached them just inside the main gate. Harry and Susan hesitated a second when they noticed the two Slytherin robes, but Harry thought they hid their surprise well enough. Still, one of them raised a questioning eyebrow before she said: 'Relax, we just want to ask you a question.'

Harry shrugged and Susan replied: 'Sure, go ahead Tracey.'

It was actually the other girl who spoke. Harry needed a few seconds to remember that her name was Daphne Greengrass. Both Daphne and her friend Tracey Davis were first year students and belonged to the few Slytherins that seemed to distance themselves from the other houses. In Harry's opinion that was a lot better than the behaviour of the other group of Slytherin students that was spearheaded by Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. He still managed to hear her reply while he browsed through his own memory. 'We were wondering about this defence club that you created Harry. Is it open for Slytherins as well?'

Again Harry hesitated: 'Well, the four of us talk about everyone that wants to join. If we all agree then everybody is welcome, we do not really care about house colours.'

Tracey looked doubtful: 'You mean that even Draco could join?'

Harry chuckled: 'Well, no. But that has nothing to do with his house. He is just a pain.'

Susan snorted and to Harry's surprise the two Slytherin girls actually nodded in agreement. It was Susan who spoke up next: 'I take it you are not here to ask if Malfoy can join the DA?'

Daphne shook her head, which made her long blonde hair whip around: 'No, of course not. The two of us are interested though.'

Harry and Susan looked at each other. Eventually Harry shrugged to indicate that Susan should keep on talking, she was much better in things like this. She moved a hand behind her back to pull on her long red braid before she carefully replied: 'Well, we do not know much of you. And I am sure it will be the same for Neville and Hermione-'

'And we are from Slytherin house, which has a bad reputation and a few idiots like Draco and Pansy to add to that reputation.' Daphne coolly interrupted.

Susan shook her head: 'That is not important. But I just want to know why you two want to join us.'

Tracey frowned: 'You keep talking about the four of you, but I thought Harry was the club's leader?'

'I am.' Harry replied, 'But only on paper, in fact we run it more or less with the four of us.'

'Ah, I see.' Tracey answered, 'That would never work in Slytherin. Anyway, you wanted to know why I want to join? Mostly because defence classes are useless without practising the spells. And beside that… Well, I am a halfblood in a house obsessed by blood purity… Some of the older girls warned me… I need to learn how to protect myself.'

Harry wondered what she meant by that, but Susan nodded that she understood: 'I see. And Daphne?'

The other blonde shrugged: 'More or less the same. Well, I am a pureblood, but my family often disagrees with most other Slytherin families in politics. And of course, if it ever comes to that I want to be able to help Tracey.'

Once again Susan nodded: 'Sounds good to me. Harry?'

Harry blinked a few times, he had not expected Susan to suddenly turn to him again: 'Yeah, same here. So unless Neville or Hermione does not agree… But I do not expect it. So come to the transfiguration classroom Thursday evening. We start at half past six, so you might want to start dinner a bit earlier. Well, sometimes we start a bit later if professor McGonagall is a bit later, she enlarges the room for us you know.'

When both girls looked at him in confusion he explained: 'We have over forty members now, so we needed more space. The professor helps us by enlarging her classroom every Thursday evening. After the Christmas vacation we actually have permission to use the great hall, although we can only start at half past seven then.'

'Okay…' Daphne slowly answered, 'We will be there.' Next to her Tracey nodded in agreement.

Harry smiled: 'The two of you actually picked a very good time to join. We are going to use the next two meetings to run through the spells we learned so far.'

'How many spells did you do until now?' Tracey asked, clearly worried by the idea that she would be behind.

'Not that many, we only started in October you know.' Harry reassured her.

'Beside that, we get new members every week. Usually we use the last hour to run through the spells of earlier meetings. Everybody helps each other at that time.' Susan smiled, she had often commented how that was her favourite time of each meeting.

'I see.' Daphne smiled, 'It sounds good. We'll see you Thursday then.'

'Great.' Harry replied, 'If you do not mind the two of us are going to hurry towards the Gryffindor common room, and the fireplace over there. I am still cold.'

The two blondes smiled and stepped aside. Some fifteen minutes later both Neville and Hermione had agreed with them that the two Slytherins could join the DA. Neville had actually been approached by two Hufflepuff second years as well, so they would not be the only newcomers.

— Thursday evening —

Professor McGonagall had already enlarged the classroom before she went to dinner. And so the members of the DA were slowly filling the room. It was still twenty minutes before they would officially start, but most Gryffindor members were already in the classroom. They came early every week to put the tables and chairs against the wall. Beside that the Ravenclaw first years and the two Hufflepuff second years who had just joined a few days ago had also arrived early. Most of them were chatting with each other. The two new Hufflepuffs were talking with Susan and Neville while Harry and Hermione were welcoming new arrivals.

Everything went smoothly until Daphne and Tracey arrived. Well, things still went smoothly for Tracey and Hermione, who immediately continued a discussion they had earlier today during potions and ignored everything around them. But Daphne and Harry clearly noticed that almost all other conversations suddenly died down. Harry looked around in wonder while Daphne softly muttered: 'I should have expected this.'

Harry frowned, he felt it was unfair for the others to judge the two girls on their uniforms. He was trying to figure out what to say about it, but the three Weasleys marched towards him and the youngest brother said: 'Eh, Harry? You know that those girls are Slytherins?'

'Yeah I know.' Harry nodded, 'And you are a Gryffindor.' He waved to a blond girl with pig tails. 'And Hannah over there is a Hufflepuff.' Next to him Daphne snorted, Harry only just managed not to look at her and he continued: 'So what?'

Behind Ron the twins looked at each other, both turned back towards Harry and showed the same puzzled expressions. They were obviously confused why Harry did not see the danger. Ron also hesitated, but he bravely moved on: 'But, Slytherins are evil!'

'Not all of us.' Daphne firmly replied, 'Although I can understand how you get that impression. Most of the neutral and light families keep to the background in our house.'

'Actually, Daphne's father is an ally of my own father in the Wizengamot. I am sure my father would agree with me when I say that the Greengrass family is not dark.' Everybody turned around and looked at Ernie Macmillan, a Hufflepuff first year. Next to Harry Daphne smiled and said: 'Thanks Ernie.'

Harry took over again: 'For now we have no reason to think that Daphne and Tracey are dark. So they are welcome in our club.' Ron and several others still looked a bit disgruntled, but they cheered up a bit when Harry said: 'Malfoy and his friends will never be welcome though.'

It seems everybody agreed, although some of them much more reluctant than others. Most students once again started to chat with each other and Harry turned to Daphne: 'Are you alright?'

Daphne stiffly nodded: 'Of course, as I said before, I should have expected it.'

'But it is unfair.' Harry protested.

She shrugged: 'So? It is also unfair that a large amount of our house thinks of Tracey as a second-class student. Even when she is easily the most intelligent first year Slytherin.' She turned toward her friend and grinned: 'I think she did not even notice our bit of drama. Look at them go.'

Harry also turned and saw that Hermione and Tracey were still fiercely debating their points. Both were waving notes around to explain things, and several other first years had gathered around them in a loose circle. Most likely none of them really knew what the two girls were talking about, but they just enjoyed the fanatic debate.

He also laughed: 'I think Hermione will be happy to finally find another student who can be so enthusiastic about the subjects. In Gryffindor only the twins are willing to really work out how things work. Most of us are happy when we know how to cast a spell or create a potion, but they sometimes try and analyse all parts of a spell or an item.'

Daphne looked at him in wonder, then she quickly glanced to the Weasley twins who were at the moment doing an odd kind of freestyle chicken dance. Harry grinned at her surprise: 'Only if they think they can use it for their pranks.'

'Ah, that makes sense.' Daphne agreed.

They kept chatting for a while longer. Mostly because Daphne did not really know where to go now that her friend was occupied with Hermione. Eventually the last students arrived and Harry clapped his hands for attention: 'Welcome all! As you can see we have four new students.' He pointed at each of them in turn: 'Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, both first year Slytherins and William Spinks and Eleora Griffins, both from the second year of Hufflepuff.'

There were some mumbled welcomes and Harry continued: 'As you know, today and next week we will run through the spells that we learned until now. Just consider it as two long 'last hour' meetings, so everybody can work for themselves. Remember that next to spell work you should also work on dodging. Hermione and I will focus on the newcomers, but of course you can always ask one of us for help if Neville and Susan are busy.' When revising during the last hour of each meeting most students preferred to ask the people next to them first before walking towards one of them. So Harry guessed they would not bother him much. It was different with new spells, since then everybody knew that the four of them had practised the spell before the meeting. And somehow they seemed to master new spells rather fast, maybe a result of the training that they had received at Lionfire Hall. Usually Harry just focused on helping people with their dodging and aim, but today he would work with two newcomers instead.

He watched how everybody split up in pairs. Although some students, including Neville and Susan, actually formed small groups of four to six people to create an even more chaotic practise area for themselves. As soon as everybody seemed to be ready to go he walked towards Hermione, who was chatting with the four newcomers. They stopped talking when he joined the group and he turned to Hermione who smiled wryly before she said: 'I'll work with William and Eleora, Tracey distracts me too much.'

And so Harry led the two Slytherin girls towards a free spot in the large classroom. He started to explain: 'We will start with the rictumsempra charm, you know about it of course?'

Both girls nodded. 'Just to be sure, the wand movement is like this.' He showed it before he continued: 'I am sure you noticed how the others are working right now.' After all, it was hard to ignore the colourful spellfire and the more or less graceful dives of all the other students. 'Basically we try to work both on spell work and on aiming and dodging.'

'Dodging?' Daphne asked.

This time he knew what the question meant, so he replied: 'Yeah, it is better than shielding sometimes, because it saves magical energy and keeps your wand free for return fire.'

'What if there is somebody behind you?' Tracey wondered.

Harry blinked in surprise: 'I guess that in that case you will have to use a shield spell, but we are only starting to practise one of those after Christmas. So for now the two of you will just start by firing rictumsempra's at each other from opposite ends of the room. And don't worry, I know how to end the effects if one of you get hit. That's actually the second spell we will work on today.'

They looked a bit alarmed by the idea of shooting spells at each other, but they soon started their first mock duel. Both turned out to be good students and Harry managed to teach them six different spells before he waved them over. The two girls walked towards them and he said: 'Great work, another meeting like this and you will know all the spells that we taught so far. You'll just have to work on your dodging. Especially you Tracey, you have the same problem that Hermione used to have.'

'Which is?' Tracey wondered when he did not continue.

He had been distracted by fond memories of some of their first 'magical' classes in which they had simply practised how to dodge spellfire since they did not have their own wands yet. 'Oh, sorry. I mean that you try to outthink your opponent. Instead of just jumping out of the way you are thinking about what direction Daphne expects you to jump to. It takes too much time like that, beside that if you just randomly jump away you are even more unpredictable.'

Tracey nodded thoughtfully and Daphne asked: 'And what about me?'

Harry considered that for a moment before he said: 'Nothing specific. Just keep practising… You seem a bit hesitant to dive sometimes, but you will outgrow that quickly enough. Especially when you two start with the stinging hex next week.'

'Next week?' Daphne wondered, before she looked at the clock above the door that showed that it was almost time to stop. 'Oh! Wow!'

Harry grinned: 'Yeah, we actually missed curfew a few times. But the twins have a way to get everybody past Filch. They do not want to tell how they do it though.'

'Well, I had fun at least.' Tracey said. Daphne nodded and took over: 'Thanks for giving us a chance Harry. I know many other people would disagree with you.'

Harry shrugged: 'You're welcome. It is not like we are doing something top secret here anyway.'

'Still.' Daphne smiled before she said: 'I think I want to watch that six way fight for a while. It looks impressive.'

Harry and Tracey followed her gaze to a mad skirmish between the Weasley twins, their friend Lee Jordan, Ron Weasley, Susan and Neville.

'Sure.' Harry nodded, 'Most likely next week Susan or Neville will work with you by the way. Hermione and I will join with the others then.'

After a few quick goodbyes Harry watched the two girls walk to the other side of the room. Looking back on the evening he was quite happy with the two newcomers. They seemed nice and definitely showed some talent. Especially Daphne was picking things up rather fast. So far, including two Slytherins seemed like a good idea. He wondered if their house colours would work against them when Harry and the others would form their inner circle somewhere in second or third year though. The four of them had easily agreed that almost everybody could join the DA. But that circle would work with more of the special techniques and goodies that they learned at Lionfire Hall. And they needed to be absolutely sure that every member could be trusted. Daphne and Tracey made a good impression on him tonight, but right now he had to admit that he would rather exclude all Slytherins from that smaller group. He guessed it was a good thing that they still had a while to get to know them.

His musings were interrupted by Hermione: 'Hey Harry, how did Daphne and Tracey do?'

'Pretty good actually, we managed the first six spells.' He replied.

'Six? That is impressive, I only managed four.' Hermione admitted.

He smiled, knowing that Hermione would not like that. Then he explained: 'It was more because of them than because of me. Tracey is just like you, she really understands the theory and already knew the wand movements by heart. Daphne sometimes took a bit longer to get the spell, but she seemed talented.'

Hermione frowned: 'Another one of your mysterious talents?'

Harry just grinned. It bothered Hermione that he could not explain why he considered some of the members of the DA as more talented fighters than others. It was just an odd feeling based on the way they moved in their mock fights, but he had already named several students as potentially good fighters. Daphne was the ninth on that list, next to all three Weasleys, Padma Patil, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet and Terry Boot.

They did not talk after that, instead they both observed the ongoing chaos in silence. Soon enough a gong sounded and within minutes a horde of students was returning tables and chairs to their original spots. The four newcomers looked around in wonder, but they would learn fast. Only moments later the transfigurations classroom was deserted again and Harry followed the large group of Gryffindors back towards the portrait of the fat lady.

_A/N: And the first Slytherin DA members have arrived. Again, I notice that I read too much fanfiction. I had the impression that Daphne had a reasonable background, but when consulting the HP-lexicon and Harry Potter wiki I learned that she is barely mentioned in canon… Ah well, that gives me a lot more freedom with those characters :D_

_You may have noticed that I skipped Halloween, although it was a rather big event in canon. The reason is that without a philosophers stone there was no reason for anyone to let a troll into Hogwarts. Beside that, since Hermione is already Harry's friend why fight one;) So I guess I could have made a chapter about the Halloween feast, but it seemed a bit boring to me. Most likely some other major events from canon will be avoided (like Harry playing quidditch in his first year;)). Sometimes they will be replaced by new events and sometimes it will just help the story to move along a bit faster. After all, I am not going to write a book about every Hogwarts year…_

_And to reviews again:_

_ILikeComps: Yeah, but you can hardly expect the other side to just ignore the altered reality. At least it makes the storyline less predictable :D_

_Happylady: Yup, you did;) As to your question, I guess only time will tell._

_Rori Potter: Thanks :)_

_Mwinter1: And here is my standard reply to let you know I appreciate the review._

_XXRemusXXTonksXX: Thanks!_

_TsukiyoTenshi: how about today?_

_Love-pink26: Thanks, and I am sure it will help. I gave up on the idea of running through all those spells for the DA. But it will be useful to mention a new spell every now and then. I can't keep using rictumsempra until seventh year :P_

_MAFITA: Well, because of your kisses I still knew it was you. But it seems more people have the same problem since changed a bit…_

_ThomasNealy: Well, they know what general area to look for. But Dumbledore has not been able to find the one hidden in Hogwarts… And since William never mentioned in which vault the horcrux was hidden it is a bit of useless knowledge to know that one is hidden in Gringotts. They can hardly go in and loot all vaults. _

_Man of faith:  I do not know either, but it happened again;) And yeah, although Dumbledore explained that Voldemort does not really have unlimited freedom of movement it still opens a lot of opportunities._

_Guest: Thanks!_

_Anime Princess: You mean they should hide in a totally different house and use the fidelius protected house as a distraction? I am not sure if it would work with the charm, I mean… can you protect a secret that is not true? And besides that I guess that if they did that everyone who noticed them in their new location could spread the news… Maybe they should work with different layers of fidelius charms;)_

_Penny is wise: Thanks!_

_Sephoria2: Thanks, and good to know since as I said it will happen a few more times. I'll try to make separate James and Harry chapters though, so not too much jumping around between the two viewpoints._


	25. Christmas at Lionfire Hall

**Christmas at Lionfire Hall**

The train ride towards platform nine and three quarters had been rather dull. And once on the platform all of them had been anxious to get home. Of course, their parents needed some time because they wanted to talk with all four of them for a while. Harry guessed it was nice of them, but to be honest he had still not been fully awake. The last DA meeting had been extremely crazy, involving a huge free-for-all fight that lasted for over two hours because people kept coming back for more. He had only been hit twice during the whole fight, which meant that he had only two short three minute breaks during two hours of dodging, running and shooting spells. Even Hermione, who had finished second, had six of those breaks. Neville and Susan had both been hit seven times. Several others were hit less than ten times, which had been the goal of the whole exercise. Surprisingly enough Daphne Greengrass was among that small group, all others had been practically involved with the DA from the start. So it was nice to see at least one new face among them.

As if that DA meeting was not enough all teachers had been trying to cram some last minute knowledge into their heads just before the Christmas break. And they had their last flying lesson, in which they had to prove to professor Hooch that they could handle a broom well enough to fly without adult supervision. Even on school brooms that was easy enough, but it meant that her class took twice as long. So both Thursday and Friday had been very busy. All in all Harry figured their compartment had not been the only one filled with sleeping DA members. It was a good thing that Hermione knew a few nice locking and alarm spells because none of them had the necessary energy to keep their eyes open.

Harry was somewhat disappointed when he saw that his parents had come by car. He had hoped for a quick side-along apparation to Lionfire Hall. But maybe he could use the ride to remove the last bits of sleep from his head. His parents seemed determined not to give him that chance though. As soon as dad got the car in motion his mother turned around and asked: 'You look a bit tired dear?'

Harry nodded: 'I think I just need to wake up a bit. We practically slept all the way from Hogwarts to King's Cross. So I should be fine.'

'How come you guys were so tired?' Dad wanted to know. And so Harry quickly described the last two days. Both his parents were proud that he had won the free-for-all, although he tried to explain to them that it was not really a competition. He told them how their small group had claimed the first four places, although George Weasley had finished on a shared third place with Neville and Susan. That reminded him of something and he added: 'Ron was hit nine times. He was teasing us this morning when we had to wake up early to catch the train, so Neville and I promised to hunt him down next time.'

Dad chuckled and mum asked: 'Isn't he going home for Christmas?'

'No, his parents and little sister are going to Romania to visit one of his older brothers. He works on a dragon reserve I think… I thought about inviting him and the twins, but I did not know if you had plans for the holiday. And of course then Percy would have been all alone.' Harry replied.

His parents looked at each other until mum said: 'I think it is nice to keep Christmas a family occasion. Although of course on Christmas day we have the usual suspects coming along.'

Harry grinned, Christmas with the marauders was always fun. And of course it would be nice to have Neville, Hermione and Susan and their parents around too. Meanwhile his father took over again: 'Oh, and we have plans for the holiday alright. You want to hear them.'

He just nodded, but he quickly realised that his father could not see that while watching the road so he said: 'Yes, of course.'

'Good.' Dad seriously replied. 'As for the first week, we all have a week off.'

Harry frowned: 'What do you mean?'

With a shrug his father answered: 'Well, just what I said. There will be no practise, no research, and no schoolwork. Just wake up when you want to and enjoy yourself. We figured we all could use a bit of that.'

Harry enthusiastically nodded in reply. He was feeling a bit more awake by now, but still it sounded cool to just have a week with no obligations. Then his mother said: 'Of course, during Christmas day we will be quite busy with all our guests. And we will use Boxing Day to prepare for the last week.'

'What are we going to do then?'

'We want to check all of your occlumency shields, just to be sure.' Mum replied, 'And beside that we are going to teach you the protego spell. You know what I mean?'

'Yeah of course.' Harry replied, 'The shield charm. Isn't it supposed to be a fourth year charm?'

His mother went into lecture mode at that: 'Yes, you are right of course. It is only taught during fourth year because it takes a bit of power to stop serious curses. Beside that it is quite difficult, but not half as difficult as occlumency for example. Anyway, we want the four of you to know it so you can start working on using shields in duels. The good thing is that for now people will not be shooting bone crushing hexes against you anyway. And if they do please tell me, I will kill them with my bare hands.' She added that last sentence without changing the tone of her voice, but both Potter men knew she was very serious about it.

Dad quickly changed the subject: 'In fact, we experimented a bit and we think it will be a nice spell to use during some paintball fights in the summer.'

Harry smiled at the idea. It was a shame that he could not take those paintball guns to Hogwarts, they would be great fun during the DA meetings. A thought jumped into his mind and he blurted it out without thinking: 'I wish I could invite all the DA to visit us during the summer.'

Instead of immediately shooting it down his parents looked at each other again. After a while mum said: 'In the muggle world they sometimes have summer camps. Maybe we can try and organise a wizarding variant? Say for a week or so? Timmy and Jenny would love to cook for so many people, and we can install some large tents.'

'Really?' Harry shouted happily, all thoughts of tired eyes suddenly forgotten.

'We'll think about it.' Dad replied, 'Beside that, it might be difficult to get people interested. I mean, families only really get together twice a year after their kids go to Hogwarts.'

'Yeah, but a while ago Hermione and I had a long talk over the mirrors.' Mum added, and both dad and Harry looked at her in surprise. She smiled and replied: 'No, we do not talk with each other that often. But Hermione was apparently worried about certain feminine problems and she once contacted me to ask if there were magical solutions.'

'Ah.' Dad nodded, Harry just looked confused. He had no idea what his mother was talking about. But he guessed it had nothing to do with him so he just listened when she continued: 'After that first talk we had a few more in which we just chatted and gossiped. Anyway, one time she told me that the four of you were trying to make as many friends as possible.'

Harry nodded: 'It was her idea actually. She said that if we knew that I was going to be in danger sometime it would be a good idea to have many friends.'

'She has a good point.' Mum agreed, 'Anyway, I think a camp like this would really help with that. Beside that, it will be good for a few of those pureblood kids to do something muggle like paintball.'

Harry grinned, excited by the very idea. It was almost a shame that the school year was only halfway done. His parents tried to explain to him that they were not sure if it could happen yet. But he replied by saying that they were the coolest parents ever to even think about it. This had them smiling, and Remus actually commented about how happy the Potter family looked on returning home.

- Two days later -

Yesterday had been great. Harry had tried to do absolutely nothing all day. He had simply dived into one of the comfortable leather chairs with the first part of Lord of the Rings. Hermione had repeatedly told the others that they had to read it if they ever had the time, and since his parents had a copy in the library Harry figured he should give it a try.

To his own surprise the adventures of Frodo and the others had kept him occupied until lunch. And only when Remus started to wonder if Harry's chess skills had improved at Hogwarts was he distracted from the book. It had of course only taken thirty minutes to get defeated by Remus again, but according to the werewolf he had definitely improved. Harry had just smiled and said that Remus should try and play against Ron Weasley during the summer sometime. After that, he had dived into his book again.

Now at breakfast his father asked: 'So Harry, what are your plans for today? More reading?'

Next to him mum smiled proudly: 'He gets it from me, I am sure of it.'

With a snort Remus added: 'Well, I know for sure James never used to read if he was not forced by the teachers.'

Harry just smiled: 'Well, I never really read fiction before either. But this book is great. I want to read a bit more today, but I think I'll go fly a bit as well.'

Now dad beamed: 'See, now that is what he got from me!'

With a grin Harry continued: 'Yeah, as you know I want to try out for seeker next year. And since I can only use those old school brooms at Hogwarts I figured I should do some practise runs at home.'

Dad started to beam even more: 'Yeah, those stupid things are useless. So you definitely have to train now and during the summer. As you know, I was a chaser, but I am sure I can give you a few tips. And maybe I can play beater, just to make it more realistic… Maybe I should invite Sirius as well… He is a beater you know.'

Harry and Remus just grinned at him, but mum interfered: 'James, you can not pull Sirius away from Amelia and Susan. We all agreed this week would be a family week.'

'I bet Susan would not mind shooting a few bludgers at me.' Harry tried, but his mother ignored all their arguments and simply forbid them to invite Sirius for quidditch training. Somehow dad managed to get both mum and Remus involved though, and after lunch Harry and Remus played a few mini matches against his parents. Remus and dad were beaters while mum was Harry's seeker opponent. He quickly learned that she was very good at spotting the snitch, but she too careful in her chases. So Harry managed to win four out of five times. Eventually his mother and Remus had enough of it, but together with his father Harry kept practicing until dinner.

In the evening, he finished the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He was determined to finish them all before Hermione arrived on Christmas day. She would be so happy to finally have someone to discuss the books with.

- Christmas day -

Harry walked around the manor again. He wanted to get a bit more used to his dress robes before the others would arrive. Normally they simply wore muggle clothing at house. But apparently the adults had decided that everybody should wear dress robes today. Most likely another 'let's prepare the kids, just in case they ever need it'. He guessed the dark green robes were nice enough, but they were a bit stiff. And so he just kept walking in the hope that he would get used to them.

Neville and his parents were the first to arrive, they were accompanied by Neville's grandmother as well. A stern looking woman that wore an odd hat with a stuffed vulture on it. Her robes were also green, but a lot lighter than Harry's. All the younger Longbottoms wore blue robes. Hermione and her parents arrived shortly after the Longbottoms. Hermione was dressed in a very nice light blue dress. And Harry wondered if her parents had not been able to get dress robes. To his surprise his own mother was also wearing a dress when she arrived a few minutes later. She had been wearing her old clothes while helping the elves in the kitchen. Not that they needed it, but mum always wanted to help for special occasions. Apparently women could choose between dress robes or dresses. Harry thought this unfair, but then he realised he would never wear a dress anyway. So it was hardly relevant.

The three families easily chatted while waiting for the last guests. Harry overheard Remus commenting that Sirius had most likely overslept, but his father argued that he was most likely working on a nice entrance. It soon turned out that dad was right. The fireplace sprang to life and suddenly a loud chorus of jingle bells rang through the room when Susan, Sirius and Amelia appeared. They all wore dark red dress robes, and somehow Sirius had managed to convince the two women to wear Christmas hats. He himself carried a big brown bag and shouted: 'Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas all!' before running around the room and passing around more Christmas hats that he kept pulling out of the big bag. A few seconds later everybody was wearing one. Even madam Longbottom, although Sirius had compromised by not removing her own hat. Instead he had put the Christmas hat over the vulture.

There were some complaints, but nobody removed the hats. When Harry tried to shift his own a bit he noticed why. It was impossible to move the thing! Somehow it seemed to be stuck to his head. Amelia dryly commented to the few people that were still trying to get them off: 'You might as well stop trying. I have been trying to remove mine for over an hour, but Sirius ensured me that the sticking charm will disappear at midnight.'

Harry shrugged, he guessed he would just have to walk around with an off centre Christmas hat then. It was not like he really cared, but several others including his mother were still complaining to Sirius. In reply the man merrily waved and shouted 'Ho ho ho!'

Eventually they all gathered around the long circular table in the dinner room. Harry had to admit that it was a nice image, all those red and white hats. Soon enough the table was filled with all kinds of delicious food while the wizarding radio was broadcasting Christmas songs. Harry was happy when Hermione's father suggested switching to a muggle radio after a few hours. It had a much broader selection of Christmas music instead, and Celestina Warbeck got a bit boring after a few songs.

During the long dinner the adults carefully talked about subjects that had nothing to do with Voldemort. Harry was not sure if this was because they did not want that subject to spoil the happy atmosphere, or because Hermione's parents still did not know all details. Meanwhile Harry and the other three kids were happily telling each other what they had done last week. Hermione's happy scream when she heard that Harry was now half way Lord of the Rings had all the adults look at her in surprise. But they quickly went back to their own conservation when they realised that Hermione was excited about a book. It was like Sirius dryly commented hardly newsworthy.

When his mother mentioned the subject of summer camp Harry waved the other three to silence and they all listened while the parents shortly discussed it. It seemed all of them were interested in the idea, although madam Longbottom thought it unlikely to work. On the other hand Hermione's parents said they had visited several camps like this in their own youth and they offered to help organising it.

For a while the kids kept listening while Hermione's father talked about his own experiences during some of those camps, but eventually Susan was the one to say: 'This sounds cool! I really hope they will make it work, it will be great to see the DA over summer!'

The other three quickly agreed and soon they were vividly debating what things they could possibly do during the summer. They only were distracted from this subject when Sirius shouted: 'And now it is time for presents!'

Immediately a huge pile of presents appeared in front of the Christmas tree. And Timmy and Jenny both appeared and quickly filled everybody's glasses one more time before they also took a seat. Years ago his mother had forced them to accept some Christmas presents. And although they had been very reluctant at first by now they were very excited about it. It was, as Remus once said, the only time in the year that he could fill his own glass.

To their surprise another house elf appeared with a loud crack. He seemed even more excited than Timmy and Jenny together. Next to Harry Susan chuckled and he turned to her. She smiled at him and said: 'That's Dobby, our house elf. Last year Sirius gave him some colourful pieces of yarn as a Christmas present. He has been knitting mismatched socks out of it and gave most of them back to Sirius, who now wears them most of the time.'

Apparently Sirius was telling the Longbottoms about Dobby as well, for he was just lifting his dress robes a bit and showed a flashy neon blue left sock and an orange with green right sock. Susan continued: 'I believe he ran out of yarn a few months ago. Sirius of course wanted to give him some more, but Dobby refused to accept it before Christmas.'

Harry grinned. He knew that Timmy and Jenny, and most likely all house elves, were very smart and dignified most of the time, but if they got excited it was like watching small kids on a sugar high. He overheard madam Longbottom complaining that house elves never used to receive gifts in her time and he wondered shortly why anyone could complain in face of so much excitement. Then he himself was also distracted again by the huge pile of presents and he forgot all about house elves.

It took a long time before the last present went to Hermione's mother. As soon as she opened her gift, a book about magical tourist attractions around the world, everybody started talking excitedly about their gifts. Harry himself was especially happy with the gift he received from his parents. It was an official snitch, signed by Iris White, the seeker of Harry's favourite quidditch team Puddlemere United. Dad had explained that it was the actual snitch she caught in the match against the Falmouth Falcons. Then Sirius, who knew just as much about quidditch as his father had explained how an official snitch like this was almost twice as fast as the ones used in Hogwarts. It was a shame that Christmas day was after their free week, but Harry hoped he could find a bit of time to practise with his new snitch.

Beside that, he had received all kinds of different things. Clothes, candies and books about various subjects, including his own copy of Lord of the Rings from Hermione, a thick tome with all three parts bound together. Hermione had apologized for giving him a book that he had already partly read, and she had offered to take it back and trade it for another book. But Harry had assured her that he was very happy with it, now he could take the book to Hogwarts and finish it between homework and DA meetings. Susan and Neville had both promised Hermione they would give the book a try sometime, although Susan shot a few doubtful glances at the thick book.

Susan herself had given everybody a large pack of Honeydukes chocolates. Apparently she had enjoyed her birthday gift and decided to return the favour. Neville's gift had been the most unusual. Each of them received a small crystal from him. They all looked confused at first, but Neville explained that it was a very basic sneakoscope. It would change in colour if someone close was doing something untrustworthy. A while the things turned blue and while the kids were still looking around suddenly Remus jumped up in shock when his robes turned into bright neon pink. He immediately pointed his wand towards Sirius, who tried very hard to look innocent. Remus' wand turned to Harry's father, who copied Sirius. Grumbling Remus sat down and removed the colour changing charm from his robes. Seconds later the sneakoscope turned to orange and they looked up just in time to see how both James and Sirius were suddenly wearing large Santa beards.

With the amount of pranks that the marauders fired at each other during Christmas the kids quickly figured that Neville's sneakoscopes would change into a different colour when another person started to act up. It was too bad that the colours were not dedicated to a single person. The first time that the orange colour showed up again they all looked at Remus, but this time he was actually the victim.

After a long and tiring day Harry had eventually went to bed with the Christmas hat still stuck on his head. Mum had been muttering about what she would tell Sirius about that, but Harry hardly cared about the hat. As soon as his head hit the pillow he was gone anyway.

_A/N: I figured I had to write a Christmas chapter sometime, so why not during first year;) I was planning to write another chapter about the week after Christmas, but I think I am going to skip that to keep the story moving a bit. Otherwise we never get anywhere…_

_A nice 22 reviews again, I really should think of an easier way to reply to them. But it is fun to answer them;)_

_Emarald: I guess that is basically the problem of every time-travel/ book reading or in this case foreknowledge story. Although I do hope I have some surprises left._

_Slytherinlover143: I'm not sure about diffindo as a first year spell, sounds a bit dangerous… And with a nick like yours you should not complain about the first chapter that shows Slytherins;)_

_Happylady, Taeniaea, XXRemusXXTonksXX, MSupernatural, X-marks-the-spot1974, Rori Potter, Mwinter1, Love-Pink26, Guest #1, Penny-is-Wise, The-Untempered-Schism666, Jbfritz: Thanks!_

_ILikeComps: It might help a lot in some situations yeah._

_Sanbeegoldiewhitey: Not quite sure what I should say about your review to chapter three;) I somewhat agree with you, but I can hardly change what happened in canon… Anyway, welcome to the story and thanks for the reviews!_

_Man of faith: I figured that with a bit less evil Snape Ron would hear less horrorstories about Slytherin from his five elder brothers. So I tried to make him a bit less hostile. Oh, and Padfoot actually suggested to them not to consider all Slytherins as enemies, so he should be fine;) _

_Anime Princess: I guess so, but the problem in canon was that they included Peter in that group anyway. Of course, in my story they could have avoided the direct confrontation with Voldemort by asking somebody else to activate the land mines, but there would always be the risk that he would find out about it somehow._

_Serena Bluemoon: Welcome back! As to your questions, the big events will most likely still happen. I ask myself all the time if there is a reason for it not too happen in my timeline. In example, a more confident Neville with actual flying experience removed Harry's opportunity for first year quidditch. But for now I can not really think of a reason to remove the tournament. I probably need to come up with some alternative events for third year though… Oh, and the pairings will more than likely be noncanon, although they are still not set in stone._

_Guest #2: Basically because Quirrell does not act like he is possessed. I just assume that there is no real divining spell to see if anyone is possessed. As far as I know the only real description the books give about someone being possessed are Ginny in second year and Harry after the fight in the department of mysteries, although Harry was only possessed for a few minutes. Still, Quirrell seems a lot less affected by it. Maybe because he is actually carrying Voldemort around instead of being possessed in a more insubstantial way._


	26. Another horcrux found?

**Another horcrux found?**

The second half of the year had been rather quiet. Gryffindor had surprisingly won their next quidditch match, no thanks to their seeker of course. But between the chasers scoring like madwomen, Oliver Wood making some spectacular saves and the Weasley twins acting like devils the Gryffindors had managed a one hundred and seventy points lead before the Hufflepuff seeker grabbed the snitch. Of course, they still did not stand a chance to actually win the cup. But at least they had one win now.

Classes had steadily become more and more complicated. And Harry and his friends noticed that they could not rely that much on their Lionfire Hall training anymore, although the basic magical exercises around occlumency and animagus training still came in handy every now and then. But they were expanding upon it, learning more spells and potions every week.

Several weeks ago Hermione had suddenly started colour-coding her notes and drafting up study schedules for the exams. Harry and the others had asked her if she was out of her mind, but it quickly became clear that most teachers agreed with their bushy haired friend. Still, all three of them had sometimes complained to each other when they saw other Gryffindors having fun at night. At least they still had the DA meetings to have fun, and Susan had told Hermione that they would have every Sunday off until the exams started. Hermione had objected, but when Susan gave no ground the two boys had quickly joined with the redhead and eventually Hermione had surrendered. Still, they spent four evenings and most of the Saturday of each week studying, beside the preparations for the DA sessions of course. Once Harry had tried to argue that they should just ignore history of magic since it was hardly useful, but when he saw Hermione's shocked look he had quickly dropped the point.

He guessed that at least his mother was going to be proud of him this summer. Dad would probably also be proud but a bit disappointed at the lack of pranks. At least he could discuss pranks with the Weasley twins, if their parents would allow them to visit Lionfire Hall. Although even those two had quietened down a bit with the pranks. They were thrilled by the idea of meeting the marauders, and they seemed to be afraid that their mother would have them grounded during the summer if she received too many notes about their activities. They had actually scored some points with Hermione when they assured her they just did not want to disturb revision time, although Harry was sure she was the only one to think that a reasonable explanation. Most others, who did not know about the twins' summer plans, just assumed that the Hogwarts staff had finally gotten the twins under control. Which, now that Harry thought of it, was even more unlikely than the excuse the twins gave to Hermione. So it was unusually calm in Hogwarts, or at least, as long as you could avoid Peeves.

And of course, Thursday evenings like tonight made for huge chaos in the great hall. Dumbledore had visited one of the first DA meetings after the Christmas break. He had been so enthusiastic about it that he allowed them to use the great hall from half past seven to half past eleven each Thursday night. Mr. Filch, the caretaker, had objected quite loudly that the DA members would break curfew that way, but Dumbledore had quickly overruled him. Somehow this little fact had brought in ten more members, mostly Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, but also two more Slytherins and the last two third year Gryffindors. For some reason no student from fourth year or higher had joined them, it was like they felt it was beneath them somehow. Although Hermione had once mentioned that the fourth years had astronomy on Thursday evening.

Harry was not sure if he really minded. After all, it was clear during their mock duels that the second and third years had much more spells and power at their disposal. And although it was a great learning experience for the younger years he figured fourth years might be a bit too much. Of course, in most of their sessions they focused on practising two or three spells before they released all restrictions for the last hour and everybody could work in small groups on whatever they wanted.

The first two hours they worked on regular duelling spells. By now everybody had more or less mastered the protego charm and so one student would fire hexes at another student who would try to shield and dodge. Today they had worked on the disarming spell; expelliarmus. Harry felt this was one of the most useful spells they covered until now and he had argued with the other three that they would use the full two hours for it. The four of them had used the first thirty minutes to shoot at each other before they had moved between the other pairs and gave help were needed.

Since Dumbledore's offer had given them an extra hour they used that for 'experimentation' now. During the hour they would take a random spell and try to think of combat uses for it. Especially the Weasley twins were brilliant at this part. Today they had worked with the softening charm; spongify. The spell would transform an object or a small area into a soft rubbery, bouncy thing. They had a lot of fun by using softened books in a large fight, but had found relatively few uses for the spell. Only distracting your opponent by softening the ground below him had been somewhat useful, but a bit too complicated to use in real fights. Some others had suggested softening the ground around themselves so diving away from spell fire would be more comfortable. But the duration of the spell was too short to make it really work. Beside that, Harry did not really see the use. Sure, it was more comfortable, but in a real fight that would hardly be your first priority.

Now during the last 'free' hour Harry and Hermione had joined with Daphne and Tracey, who had been trying to adapt some magical children's game into something useful for DA training. It vaguely resembled quidditch with two floating dark blue balls and one larger bright yellow one. They were not allowed to touch the balls but had to use their wands to shoot them around. Shooting the yellow ball through a floating hoop in the middle of the area that they claimed for themselves gave five points, shooting a blue ball against an opponent counted for one point. An interesting detail was that the yellow ball could be intercepted by well aimed spells from the opponent, and you had to pass it between team mates three times before trying to score. It was a bit too much when they played two versus two, but when six others joined and made it a five versus five with two more dark blue balls it was great fun. Especially Ron Weasley had been very fanatic. It looked promising, and a nice change from the usual free style fights and extra training during the last hour, but needed a bit of polishing still.

At half past eleven a loud gong sounded through the great hall. And quickly everybody moved towards the exit. Dumbledore had told them that the house elves would clear up after them, and they all felt they should not abuse their rights to ignore curfew too much. So within a minute the great hall was empty.

Harry was walking on the front of the mob of Gryffindors, debating the game that they had just played with Hermione. They barely paid attention to where they were going, instead they automatically walked towards the seventh floor and the Gryffindor common room. Once on the seventh floor, their discussion was interrupted by a loud scream from Lavender Brown. Startled, they looked up, wand in hand.

A body lay stretched out on the floor. Quickly the whole Gryffindor host charged forward, all had their wands in hand and were looking around for possible dangers. Harry quickly realised that the body was professor Quirrell's. The pale skin and the half burned turban on his head were proof enough. When they reached the man Hermione knelt down and put a hand on his neck. A short time later she stood up, shook her head and said: 'He is dead. And cold as well, so I think he has been here for a while.'

Harry was a bit surprised when everyone looked at him for instructions. He was tempted to tell them that the DA was over and that one of the third years should take command, but he realized it would be useless to start that discussion right now. So instead he said: 'I think we should get the headmaster and madam Pomfrey. But I do not want to split up, his killer might still be around.'

'You think we should all go to the headmaster's office?' Susan suggested.

'I am not sure if we should leave the body behind.' Hermione argued.

Harry nodded in agreement. 'Can't we send a message somehow?' His eyes drifted to the Weasley twins. Who looked at each other for a few seconds before Fred said: 'We can get the teachers to here if you want.'

'But I am not sure if they would appreciate our method.' George clarified.

Somewhat doubtful Harry said: 'Well, as long as it works. This is an emergency after all… go for it.'

The twins nodded and pointed their wands away from the group. Suddenly two silver beams shot out of their wand tips and flew into the hallway. After some fifty feet the two beams connected with each other and a huge explosion sounded. Several students cursed, but Harry had just noticed that they were standing in front of a painting. He stepped to it and asked the wizard depicted on it: 'Excuse me, but did you see what happened to professor Quirrell?'

The wizard shook his head and waved to the three tutu-wearing trolls: 'I was just trying to explain those buffoons how to do a _pas de bourree. _And then when I looked back suddenly I saw the body. I tried to tell someone, but this is my only portrait in Hogwarts.'

Harry nodded, he knew from the paintings in Lionfire Hall that they could move between their own portraits. But he should have realised that a wizard that was apparently trying to teach trolls to dance would not have anything useful to say anyway. He was trying to think of what to do next when a stern voice sounded from his left: 'What is the reason for all this ruckus?'

As usual, Hermione was the first to answer a teachers question. 'Professor McGonagall, we found professor Quirrell, and this was the only way that we could think of to alarm the other professors.'

'Professor Quirrell?' McGonagall asked while the tiny professor Flitwick suddenly appeared on her side. Apparently she had not seen the body yet, because when several students moved away a bit she suddenly shrieked: 'Oh my. What on earth happened?'

Flitwick immediately jumped towards the fallen teacher, but after a few quick charms he stood up and shook his head. Since nobody had replied to McGonagalls question Harry spoke up: 'We do not know what happened professor. We were just heading back to the dormitory when we found him.'

'I see.' McGonagall slowly replied, then she gasped when Flitwick moved away the remains of the turban a bit and revealed a large black spot on the back of Quirrell's head. She shook her head a few times to regain her nerves before she raised a wand and suddenly a silver white cat shot out of it and ran away. All the students watched it go in wonder while McGonagall said: 'Filius? Can you watch the body until the headmaster arrives while I bring my students to their dormitories?'

'Of course Minerva.' The small man nodded.

McGonagall nodded and immediately motioned for the students to follow her, which they did, many of them asking questions. But it was clear that their head of house had no answers available, or at least she did not want to give them to the students. Once they arrived at the fat lady she led them inside and shortly talked with one of the prefects to learn that the tower had been quiet tonight. She turned back to the DA members: 'I will not tell you to go to bed and forget about it, because you won't. But try to remain calm, I am sure the headmaster will address the student body at breakfast.'

With that, she quickly left the common room. Of course this meant that the few older students that had still been awake started to question the newcomers about what happened. Harry, Neville, Susan and Hermione somehow managed to slip away to the boys dormitory. Once there, Harry immediately pulled his mirror forward, enlarged it and called: 'Mask!'

Remus was on guard duty, he noticed their expressions and immediately asked: 'What happened?'

'We just found professor Quirrell's body.' Harry replied.

Remus looked alarmed: 'Professor Quirrell died? And who is we?'

'All of the Gryffindor DA members.' Hermione replied at the same time that Harry said: 'Yeah, we do not know how it happened tough.'

Remus nodded and calmed down a bit, apparently he had understood both simultaneous answers. 'You are in your dormitory now?'

'Yes.' All four of them agreed.

'Ok, you should be fine for now then, I will alert the others. I want one of you to stay in contact with me all night, call my on my own mirror instead of mask. Take shifts for that, two hours each and by last name order. Understood?' Remus replied.

They all nodded, although Harry felt a bit guilty that he had one of the easiest watches this way. He would be able to sleep six hours and just had to wake up a bit early. However, before he could voice any objections Remus continued: 'Good. We will try and get permission to enter Hogwarts as extra security. But if we can not reach Dumbledore we might be unable to enter until the morning. Still, if there is any danger give us a sign. We have enough ward-breakers to disrupt even the Hogwarts wards long enough for us six to slip in, but I'd rather not show the world how we use illegal devices. Beside that, they represent a small fortune.'

'Are you sure that we will be safe here?' Neville asked.

Remus hesitated for a few seconds: 'No Neville, I am not sure about that. But I am sure that McGonagall, Dumbledore and the other teachers will not allow harm to come to you without causing a lot of chaos and noise. As long as one of you is awake he or she can wake the others and inform us. But you guys will need your energy, so try and sleep a bit anyway.'

They all reluctantly agreed, well aware that there was not much they could do anyway. Susan and Hermione quickly left for their own room and Harry waited until Remus said that Susan had connected with him. Meanwhile he had seen how Remus summoned Timmy and asked him to wake James and Lily and contact the others as well.

He said his goodbyes to Remus and then had a short chat with Neville before both of them changed into their night clothing and tried to get some sleep. He was still wide awake when Ron, Dean and Seamus finally entered the dormitory. And even after that it took him a long time to fall asleep.

It felt like he had only just fallen asleep when Neville shook him away. Although he knew it had to be more than two hours ago since he had totally missed Neville's own guard duty. His friend explained that his mother had taken over from Remus. Harry nodded and gave him a few seconds to say goodbye to his mother, then he enlarged his mirror and said: 'Alice.'

Immediately the friendly face of Neville's mother appeared and she looked at Harry: 'Are you alright Harry?'

'More or less.' Harry shrugged, 'Did not get too much sleep, but it is okay. Any news?'

Alice frowned: 'Not really, there were no traces of any attacker. A while ago Amelia and a few aurors left Hogwarts after asking a lot of questions and doing some magical tests. Now your parents and Remus are talking with the headmaster. Sirius, Frank and I are standing guard outside Gryffindor tower.'

'Oh great.' Harry replied, he had not really recognised the background behind Alice yet, but now that she said it he saw the familiar Hogwarts walls, 'The headmaster let you in then?'

'Oh yeah, he was more than happy with a few more wands.' Alice smiled, 'Although we did not even have to use them, and by now the castle is crawling with aurors.'

Harry nodded: 'But they still do not know what happened to professor Quirrell?'

Alice shook her head and started to explain a few of the theories that went around the castle. None of them sounded really plausible. After some fifteen minutes she stopped talking and looked away from the mirror. When she turned back towards Harry she said: 'Can you wake the others and meet us outside the common room?'

'Sure.' Harry replied before walking towards Neville who was still half awake. Then he used his mirror to wake the girls, which took a bit more time, but it was the only option he had since he could not enter their dormitory. Some ten minutes later four sleepy kids met six tired looking adults.

After a brief round of hugs, in which the adults made sure to include Hermione as well, Remus led them to a nearby classroom. Once inside Harry's mother turned to the door and quickly cast a lot of wards. As soon as she was done his father said: 'We have just talked with Dumbledore, and we believe we know what has happened.'

'Which is?' Harry impatiently asked.

His father smiled: 'Dumbledore would probably want me to say that these are only theories-'

'He would not want you to tell the children anything.' Mum snorted.

'True enough.' Dad admitted, before he grinned: 'So do not tell him we did. Anyway, I do not know how much of the prophecy and William's viewings you remember?'

The kids looked at each other but when no one replied James continued: 'Basically, it was foretold that Voldemort would possess a teacher this year and try to steal the philosopher's stone.'

'But when we removed the stone from the equation and Dumbledore could not discover any signs of possession we believed that Voldemort had chosen not to come to Hogwarts.' Remus added before he dryly continued: 'Obviously we were mistaken.'

'Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort?' Harry asked. He blinked a few times when he realised how stupid that question had been. Nobody replied to it and Hermione asked: 'How could professor Dumbledore miss that Quirrell was possessed?'

Harry was not surprised when his mother was the one to reply: 'Possession is not really the most common form of magic. He did the right magical checkups, but apparently Quirrell, or rather Voldemort, had some protection against those kind of spells. Beside that Dumbledore asked some students to report to him if any professor acted confused or forgetful, sure signs of possession. But none of them ever mentioned Quirrell.' Harry and the other kids exchanged a few looks. None of them had ever noticed anything off with Quirrell, beside the annoying stutter of course. His mother continued: 'Most likely it did not help that this was a unique way of possession. Judging by the wound on Quirrells head Voldemort was physically attached to him somehow. I never heard of a similar situation, but it might be part of the reason why he slipped through normal tests.' She was silent for a few seconds before she concluded: 'I often criticize Dumbledore, but I'm not sure if he could not have avoided this.'

'But why did Voldemort leave now?' Susan wanted to know.

'Again, it is only a theory.' Remus slowly replied, 'But we believe that he removed the horcrux that was hidden in Hogwarts, although we still have no idea where it would have been hidden. We could not find any hidden rooms near the body.'

'But… If Voldemort got one of his horcruxes, he can destroy it to regain his own body… Right?' A suddenly worried Harry wanted to know.

His father grimly nodded: 'Yes, he only has to perform a simple ritual. He has to wait for the right moon phase, which will be next week. But still…'

'Dumbledore seems to think that he might delay his return a bit. According to him Voldemort should be reluctant to sacrifice one of his horcruxes.' Remus added.

'But then, why remove it?' Sirius asked simply.

Dad nodded again: 'That is what we thought as well. Lionfire Hall will be in full defensive mode from now on at least… Which reminds me, do you have a list of names from the DA?'

Hermione immediately withdrew a list from one of her pockets and handed it to Harry's father. He quickly looked over it before he said thanks and pocketed it himself. For a few seconds Harry wondered what his father needed the list for, but he forgot about it when Neville asked: 'So, what is going to happen now?'

It was Frank, Neville's father, who replied: 'I am sure that Dumbledore will try to warn the ministry, but without proof that might be difficult. Beside that, he will try to find allies.'

Remus nodded and said: 'Voldemort will realise this as well, so it is likely that he will first build up his strength before he makes his presence known to all the world. Things should remain peaceful for a while, but be on your guard.'

'And keep training.' Harry dryly added, those two sentences had been central in their education for years.

'Exactly.' Remus smiled.

'Sirius?' Susan asked, and when he turned to her she continued: 'Where is auntie?'

'She is at the ministry.' Sirius replied, 'Trying to make sense out of what happened tonight no doubt.'

Susan blinked, 'Doesn't she know all this?'

'Most of it yeah.' Sirius nodded, 'But she needs to create a story with 'proof'. At the ministry she can not work with reasoning based on prophecies. Officially she does not know about it after all.'

'Oh, of course.' Susan agreed.

Hermione was the next to ask a question: 'What is going to happen with the defence classes now?'

Now Harry's father actually chuckled: 'They are going to be interesting…' he paused for effect: 'Dumbledore decided to cover the few remaining classes until the exams himself.'

Hermione's eyes widened: 'The headmaster is going to teach us? But I thought he used to teach transfiguration?'

It was Alice who replied: 'I think Dumbledore knows enough about defence as well.'

'Oh, yeah sure… I did not mean that.' Hermione stammered.

Harry's mother came to her rescue: 'He also decided to cancel all classes of today. And on Monday as well, since Quirrells funeral will be on that day. So you guys might as well go get some sleep. Us too by the way. We can talk later.'

Reluctantly everybody agreed. Harry would have liked to talk a bit more, but as soon as he started to climb the stairs towards his dormitory he suddenly felt very tired and he was glad when he stumbled into his bed.

_A/N: Bit of a timejump in this chapter. I guess that if I had finished this story before publishing it I would have spread events a bit better throughout first year. But that's what you get for writing it as you go ;) Ah well, in a way I guess it is more realistic that some periods see less action than others. Anyway, we just saw the first time that Voldemorts actions were very different from the original timeline… Let me know what you think of it!_

_So, to reviews again._

_Man_of_faith: Of course not, Neville's gift had totally nothing to do with that! The very idea! *whistles innocently* Anyway, I loved the Ron and Hermione bickering in canon as well, and originally I planned to get Ron into the group, but it just not really worked out so far I guess. Blame my poor writing ;) To be honest, I am not quite sure if Ron or any of the other Weasley's will grow into a main character in my story, although at least the four youngest ones will play important parts… But between James and company, Harry and company and the attention I will have to give the eventual boyfriends/girlfriends of Harry and company it will be quite busy already. Although I guess it is still possible that one or more Weasley's end up as boyfriends/ girlfriends ;)_

_Ladywatertiger: The more sleep part did not really work out in this chapter;) And snaps? _

_Sirius009: Well, something happened alright. As to the pacing, I like slow moving stories, so I guess I'll write slowly as well :D Although I hope to spent less time on second year, now that some basic things like the DA are running… Not sure if that will really work out for me though._

_Michaeldavidgeng, Jbfritz, ILikeComps, Happylady, Sanbeegoldiewhitey, Rori Potter, MAFITA : Thanks!_

_Anime Princess: The poor boy will most likely abstain from girls if he gets that talk from the marauders… I guess you are right and it will have to happen sometime, although I guess eleven is a bit young (Dumbledore would agree :P), not sure if I will write it out in detail though, might be fun…_

_TsukiyoTenshi: The marauders not playing pranks would be totally unrealistic I think. I am not sure about a full our prank war though…_

_Taeniaea: Thanks, Sirius is a cool character, but sometimes it is hard to come up with ridiculous things for him to do ;)_

_RRW: I guess Lily (and Timmy and Jenny) were glad those two stayed at Hogwarts then…_


	27. Exploring magic

**Exploring magic**

Today the first year Gryffindors had their first defence against the dark class since their former teacher died. All of them were excited by the idea of finally having a real teacher for this subject. Or course it helped that this teacher was in fact a walking legend, but after Quirrells stuttering about the book they would welcome any new teacher. One of the first things that they noticed after entering the class room was the fresh air. There were no traces of garlic anymore. Beside that it looked like Dumbledore had decided not to change anything inside the room, the walls were still decorated with pictures of dark creatures.

Since the headmaster had other duties next to teaching the schedules had been adjusted a bit, and they now shared their defence class with the first year Ravenclaws. Harry was not really surprised to find out that the claws had arrived even before the Gryffindors, although they were about ten minutes early. The two groups easily mingled and chatted a bit, they all knew each other from the DA after all.

After five minutes or so, the headmaster walked in while whistling a merry tune. He stopped whistling when he arrived at his desk and smiled to the students: 'Hello class, it is nice to see that you all are in time.'

The students waited patiently while Dumbledore pulled a few parchments out of one of his pockets, the man quickly read them before he said: 'Ah, right. If I understand professor Quirrells notes correctly you have already finished with Mr. Trimble's book?'

He looked into the class, waiting for an answer. Unsurprisingly it was Hermione who replied: 'Yes sir. The last two classes we were allowed to discuss the book among ourselves.'

'Which was a bit less boring than reading it.' Ron dryly added.

Hermione and several Ravenclaws looked scandalized at the redhead's casual reply, but Dumbledore merely chuckled: 'You will be relieved to know that you will not need the book anymore for your remaining classes then. That is, unless anyone has questions about it of course. I will gladly try and answer them.' He waited for a few seconds and when nobody asked anything he continued: 'Do not hesitate to come to me if a question arises to you on another time. But for now I will assume that you all have enough theoretical knowledge to pass the exam. Mr. Potter-' Harry looked up in surprise, '-would you agree with me that all those students also have enough practical experience?'

Harry shrugged: 'Well, I know that each of them can do all the spells mentioned in the book. In the DA we only move on to the next spell after every member has cast the current spell correctly five times in a row. In fact, we started to add some useful spells from higher years and even charms and transfiguration spells to our meetings, last week we used spongify for example.'

Dumbledore smiled in reply: 'I see. Does this mean that you realised one of the most fundamental basics of defence against the dark arts?'

With a confused look Harry replied: 'I am not sure sir.' Again the headmaster just smiled and looked around the class to see if anyone else wanted to try. Eventually a Ravenclaw timidly lifted his hand. 'Yes, Ms. Brocklehurst?'

The shy girl hesitated before she replied: 'I am not sure, but maybe you mean that defence is not really a magic group?'

'That is exactly what I meant!' Dumbledore enthusiastically replied, 'Take five points for Ravenclaw. Does everybody understand what Ms. Brocklehurst just told us?'

Harry was glad to see that he was not the only one who did not have a clue. He was even happier when Seamus was the one to ask: 'Not really, I mean… I can see that some spells were mentioned both in this class and in charms or transfiguration, but why does that matter?'

'The important point is that transfigurations and charms are more theoretical subjects. You could become a renowned transfiguration master by simply mastering all those spells and never leaving your desk. What we do in defence is more a practical application of all the magic we learn from other subjects. The only way to become considered as a defence master is surviving and winning fights.' The headmaster explained, and Harry started to see what he meant.

Seamus nodded and now Ron asked: 'So you mean that hexes and curses are not really defence spells?'

'Yes.' Dumbledore simply replied, before he added: 'Although they are of course very useful in duels. But in general the names only mean that those spells are not that nice. If you simply look at the magic you will see that each hex or curse is based on charms or transfiguration. Well, beside the arithmancy and runes that are often involved, but let's not go there now. Allow me to give one example… Have you ever heard of the hair-thickening charm?' Ron nodded, 'And the toenail-growing hex?' now Ron shook his head, but he quickly said: 'But I can imagine what it does.'

The headmaster chuckled: 'I guess its name is not really original. Anyway, would you agree with me that both spells do similar things, although on different parts of the body?' Hesitantly Ron nodded and Dumbledore continued: 'So, would you also agree with me that the only reason that one is called a hex is that it is often used to hurt other people? While magically it is in fact just another charm?'

'I guess so…' Ron slowly replied.

Next to him Hermione asked: 'Excuse me sir, but where exactly are you going with this?'

'Yes, once again I am much too longwinded.' The headmaster nodded, and although Hermione looked almost panicked by the idea that Dumbledore would think she criticized him he just continued: 'Thank you Ms. Granger. Since you all are already suitably prepared for the exam I want to use the last few weeks of this term to do some study of magic in general. I believe that in the long run it will not only help you in defence, but also in your other subjects.'

Nobody replied to this statement, and after a short while the headmaster raised his wand and said: 'Allow me to show you. Mr. Potter, could you shoot an expelliarmus at me?' Harry shrugged, for a second he wondered how the professor knew that they had just practised this spell in the DA, but then he raised his wand and called: 'Expelliarmus!'

He had not really expected to disarm Dumbledore, but he had expected a simple protego instead of the lightning fast complicated wand movement that Dumbledore used. The red jet of light from his expelliarmus suddenly stopped moving some three feet in front of the headmaster and a light grey ball appeared around it. Everybody looked at the frozen spell in wonder, but Dumbledore did not pay it any attention, instead he lifted a quill from the desk and continued: 'Mr. Weasley, could you make this quill hover for me?'

Ron pointed his wand at the feather, made a nice jab with it and said: 'Wingardium Leviosa.' Soon enough the quill was also surrounded by a grey ball, although this time the headmasters wand movements were a bit slower. Harry still had no idea what the man just did though. Next he asked two Ravenclaws for two more spells, a small protego and a rictumsempra. Eventually he had four light grey balls floating in front of him, then he said: 'If you could all gather around the balls I will show you what we are going to work on during the next few weeks.' While the students moved forward he continued: 'On a side note, I would appreciate it if you could teach this spell to the other DA students as well. I am afraid I will not have the time during their class, since most of the Slytherin students still need to practise the standard spells.'

As soon as all the students were gathered in a loose circle the headmaster pointed his wand at Harry's expelliarmus and said: 'This is the spell that we are going to work on during the next classes; Magica Revelio!' A white jet shot into the light grey ball that surrounded Harry's spell. Suddenly three separate lists of symbols appeared above the ball. The first list showed complicated mathematical formulas, Harry studied them for a few seconds but quickly admitted that he did not have a clue what they meant. On the second list he saw a large number of runes, and although his father had once showed them a few runes back at Lionfire Hall he had no idea what they meant. The third list was a lot shorter, and also made a bit more sense. It showed four different icons, three in bright red, and one in dark blue.

Before he could really start to study them the professor started to talk again: 'This spell is the basic spell for magical analysis. It is not included in the Hogwarts curriculum, and you are not required to learn it. That is why there will be no homework for this class. But I hope you will at least pick up some things during those weeks, and some of you might actually want to broaden their knowledge a bit. This spell is very important for magical researchers, healers and aurors for example.'

He pointed to the first two lists: 'Those two lists are not important for now. They show the arithmethic and runic building blocks of the expelliarmus spells. You can choose those subjects in your third year, and if you do so you will eventually start to understand how spells actually work. For now, I want to focus on the third list. Those symbols are a simplified description of the results of the first two lists. Basically red stands for offensive or hurtful, blue is neutral and green would be defensive or healing. In this case we only have a few symbols. The first one, a red human, means that the spell is meant to be shot at a single opponent. The red hand with the falling wand shows that he will drop whatever he is holding. The two arrows tell us that the target will be pushed away while the item he just lost will be pulled towards the caster. See how the red arrow is much thicker than the blue one? Oh, you do not have to copy this down, I will provide all of you with a long list of symbols and their meanings next lesson.'

Dumbledore moved on to the rictumsempra and the wingardium leviosa after that. Both showed a lot more symbols, apparently because both spells had a longer duration and actually affected the target. Next he moved to the protego spell, which showed a huge list of symbols. He explained: 'The shield charm is one of the most beautifully crafted spells. It is a relatively simple spell which protects against a huge variation of spells, including the three we just saw. If you studied this list long enough you would find an opposite symbol of every single symbol we saw for those other spells. Take this green hand for example.' He pointed to a hand that was firmly holding a wand. 'And because new spells are often a combination of a few older spells it will protect against those as well.'

Hermione raised her hand and after the headmaster nodded to her she asked: 'I once read something about unblockable spells? Why can't people just add some more symbols to this spell?'

'If only it was that easy.' Dumbledore chuckled. 'The basic protego charm will protect you against a great many spells, but some of the more powerful and exotic spells will not be totally blocked. In that case you will need a stronger shield charm. It is a bit of a trade off between keeping the spell simple enough to use and the level of protection.'

'I understand that, but the book I read said that there are three spells that simply can not be blocked?' Hermione continued.

With a deep sigh Dumbledore replied: 'Ah yes, the unforgivable curses. There is a general consensus that they can not be blocked by magical shields, although physical objects do work well enough.' He looked thoughtful for a few minutes before he said: 'I think you are a bit too young to discuss those curses. But the question in itself touches one of the most interesting aspects of spell analysis, so I will try to answer it. The main problem is this symbol.' He waved his wand and a small dark black and pulsating skull appeared. There were a few shocked gasps, and Harry had to admit that the small symbol was simply discomforting somehow. Dumbledore continued: 'This symbol stands for pure hate. It is not so much a result of arithmancy or runes, but the emotion that is used by the caster of the spell. Emotion is important for a lot of spells and can improve the strength of normal spells as well, but that is not important right now. The three unforgivable curses are the only spells that need pure hate to work. And because magical shields do not have any defence against pure hate the spells can slip through. What would you use to shield against pure hate Ms. Granger?'

Hermione hesitatingly offered: 'Pure love?'

'Exactly.' Dumbledore nodded, 'Do you see the problem?' When Hermione did not reply he continued with a sad voice: 'It is so much easier to hate than to love, especially during a fight. Some people can easily hate their opponents and send a very dark curse towards him. To shield yourself against it you would have to absolutely love yourself, which is quite difficult.'

Nobody replied to this, but after a while Harry could not resist saying: 'So, if you see one of those dark curses heading to one of your loved ones, could you shield it then?'

'Theoretically, yes.' Dumbledore nodded, 'Although I will add that such a level of pure love is very hard to find. Beside that, you will have to focus on the shield, and if you are in a duel of your own at the same time that could be disastrous. To make things even worse, no one has ever been able to create an actual shield charm based on pure love. Basically because it is impossible to test.'

'Why would it be impossible to test?' Terry Boot wondered aloud.

'Because, Mr. Boot, if a magical researcher has a person that he loves enough to cast the shield upon he or she will never allow another person to shoot one of the unforgivable curses at that person.' Dumbledore explained, 'So that means the shield can only be tested in actual battle scenario's where the caster has enough time to watch and protect his beloved one. Even if it works, the caster still has to survive the battle to tell others about it.'

Harry pretty much missed the rest of the class, which only lasted five more minutes anyway. He remembered how his parents had explained that according to Williams foretelling they would have died just before Harry rebounced a killing curse towards Voldemort. He wondered if his parents had researched a love shield somehow, maybe he should ask them about it sometime.

— Next Thursday —

Apparently Harry had not paid enough attention during the last few minutes of defence class. It was not the first time that he missed a few minutes while he was reminiscing about could have beens, but this time he had missed Hermione inviting the headmaster for the DA meeting. Since there were only two more meetings before the exams they had decided to spend the first two hours on some revision, after that the headmaster had joined them and Hermione had quickly summarised the last first year Gryffindor/ Ravenclaw defence against the dark arts lesson. Now several small groups were still working on normal spells. However, most students were gathered around the headmaster who was trying to teach them the two spells he had used during that lesson.

Harry quickly got the hang of the diagnostic spell, but the spell that Dumbledore used to 'capture' the spells was very difficult. Especially when you tried to catch a moving spell. The headmaster also showed two new spells that could be used to analyse an enchanted object or a potion. Neville softly commented that the headmaster had a lot of guts to show a spell like that to the Weasley twins, but Harry just smiled. He was quite sure the headmaster actually enjoyed the twins' antics. The old man did not seem worried at all.

After the meeting Hermione asked her friends to wait in the common room until they were alone. It was well over midnight when the last seventh years went upstairs, after a few questioning glances towards the four first years. As soon as Hermione heard their dormitory door close she said: 'Harry? Do you think I should have waited until we form our elite group before inviting Dumbledore to show us those spells?'

He considered it for a few moments. They had always agreed that they would save the special magic, like animagus training, occlumency and more advanced duelling spells, for a smaller group of trustworthy people that they wanted to select after two or three years. Eventually he shrugged: 'I am not sure, it is not really combat related. But I guess it would be unhelpful if any of our opponents started to research his own magic.'

Hermione looked crestfallen and he quickly added: 'Although I think Voldemort and some of his allies already know this kind of magic.'

'Yeah, it's hardly secret.' Susan nodded, 'Most people just do not care about it I guess.'

Neville changed the subject: 'Now that Voldemort got that horcrux and will most likely return sooner, do you still plan to wait two or three years before forming that inner circle?'

'Yes.' Harry immediately replied, 'We will ask them to invest a lot of time in this and probably risk their very lives every so often. So I want to tell them everything… or at least, after they learn occlumency I guess.'

Hermione blinked in surprise: 'You mean… even the prophecy?'

Harry simply nodded: 'They have the right to know that if we ask them to risk their lives, right?'

She hesitated: 'I guess so. It is just… the more people that you tell a secret to, the more unlikely it is to be kept.'

A frowning Susan said: 'Maybe we can tell them the part that Voldemort already knows? I mean, it should be enough to explain why this is so important to us, but even if one of them spreads the news there is no major harm done.'

They all thought about this and nodded in agreement. Then Neville said: 'Are we done then? I mean, it is after one by now.'

Hermione squeaked: 'Oh no! And we have charms first thing tomorrow, I still need to revise.'

The other three chuckled while their favourite bookworm suddenly left her comfortable armchair and practically flew towards her dormitory. But soon enough they all copied her action, although none of them ran that fast.

_A/N A bit of a slow chapter again, but I needed it for several things that are going to happen later;) I was thinking of doing a Voldemort chapter, to see what he is doing, but I think I'll stick to Harry and James and they just have to try and reason what Voldy is doing… Hope you enjoyed the Dumbledore lesson. I think it is the first time that I created a non-canon spell, but as I said, I will need it;)_

_So, to reviews again._

_Mwinter1, Taeniaea, TsukiyoTenshi, Happylady, Rori Potter, Jbfritz, Kimbers1964, Penny is wise: Thanks!_

_Emerald777: Thanks, I am not quite sure I am going to work out the Lestrange horcrux… I mean, they do know that there is a horcrux hidden in Gringotts by now, but there is the small part of working out which vault and how to enter it;)_

_ILikeComps: Most likely he never noticed it because he was so busy with his talented dancing squad ;)_

_Sanbeegoldiewhitey: This way is a bit faster I guess. And of course the problem with retelling the story is always to avoid copying too much. _

_Pappy's girl: Either that or he is pranking everybody;) But yeah, the Hogwarts horcrux is gone. And thanks for reviewing of course._

_Guest: Earlier Dumbledore explained that Voldemort has to sacrifice a horcrux to return to his body. At least, as long as he can not do the other ritual. So if Voldemort destroys this horcrux I guess it will not be hidden anywhere._


	28. Summer preparations

**Summer preparations**

James, Lily, Remus and Timmy stepped back and looked at their handiwork. They had been working on the central rune stone of Lionfire Hall for two days in a row. It had been difficult to decipher the archaic rune structures, and it was even harder to connect it to their own modern rune scheme. And if that was not enough they had to be very careful not to destroy any of the old defence mechanisms. But eventually they had managed it. It was a good thing that Lily had found a very rare book about how to add new schemes to existing wards last week, otherwise they would still be wasting time trying to find a way to alter the ancient runes by now.

The new runes would make it a lot easier to invite people into the manor. Instead of the long and taxing ritual that James, as master of the house, had to perform each time he wanted someone to visit with the old runes he could now simply add names to a book. It would only grant them floo access to the entrance hall, but that was good enough. Especially since the majority of their guests of this summer would not be able to apparate anyway. James looked to his three companions once more and all of them nodded, although Timmy took a long time. James smiled and said: 'I guess we have to test it then.'

The others followed him to the entrance hall. Remus did one more check on the large fireplace that dominated the hall, and after a few minutes he declared it 'safe enough'. James took the book that was resting on the mantelpiece and quickly scribbled down their own names, then he added Sirius, Amelia, Frank and Alice before writing down the names of the Grangers and the four kids. Of course, none of the last six really had access to a floo at the moment, but it might be useful sometime.

Then he wrote the name of their guinea pig down before he crouched down in front of the fireplace. He had to install a small fireplace on eye level sometime. Sure, it would look stupid, but it was a pain to kneel down every time you wanted to call someone. But for now it had to do. He dropped some floo powder and called: 'Headmasters office, Hogwarts.'

Seconds later he looked into the familiar office and saw the headmaster looking up from his desk: 'James! What a pleasant surprise.'

'Good afternoon Albus.' James replied, 'Could you help us out for a moment?'

'Of course.' The elder man replied with a questioning look.

'You see, we have been working on the wards of Lionfire Hall.' James explained, 'I think I once told you about the silly rituals I had to perform to give anyone access to the house while it is in defensive mode?' Dumbledore nodded and James continued: 'Well, we created a workaround that should make inviting people a bit easier. But we were wondering if you could give it a test run? All of us are rather sure it should work, but just in case we missed something.'

The headmaster looked thoughtful for a moment before he asked: 'How dangerous are your wards anyway? Should I prepare for the worst?'

'Oh no, nothing like that.' James quickly assured him, 'The floo wards will only block access. They will only turn aggressive if you try to breach through them forcefully. Which I would not advice. So if they block you, just return here and I will call you again. We figured we'd ask you for the test run because you are most likely to see the problem if it does not work.'

Dumbledore smiled and stood up. 'I am flattered. Well, let us see if this will work.'

James quickly stepped back from the fire and a few seconds later Albus Dumbledore stumbled out of the fireplace. He found his balance and dryly commented: 'It is a bit more of a bumpy ride, I am not quite sure why. But beside that there were no problems at all.'

'Most likely because the floo actually turns between some of the wards.' Lily commented while scribbling down some notes. 'I'll invite Sirius and the Longbottoms to see if they will have the same comments.'

The headmaster simply stepped out of the way when Lily advanced towards the hearth. He had learned, just like all the others, that it was unwise to stand in her way if she wanted to know something. So he turned to James and Remus: 'Out of interest, how did you manage this? I know it is a very difficult thing to alter wards as old as the ones protecting Lionfire Hall.'

'We did not really alter the wards, instead we expanded upon them.' James replied, before he allowed Remus to give the long and technical description of what they had done to Dumbledore. He himself had done his fair share while they were working on their new wards, but he did not really enjoy talking about it. Remus did though. And so he just listened to the discussion. Meanwhile, Sirius joined with them while Lily welcomed Frank and Alice. The third marauder quickly grew bored, but remained patient anyway. He never really had been into runes, but at least he had learned a bit of patience since he had left Hogwarts.

Eventually the headmaster nodded: 'Ingenious. And what about the book? How do you prevent anyone else adding names to it?'

James smiled and offered the book to Albus. 'Here, give it a try.'

'Thank-' The headmaster stopped talking and chuckled when the book disappeared as soon as James let go of it. 'I see.'

'Only those with Potter blood can hold it. As soon as somebody else touches the book it will be teleported to Timmy. And he will bring down Lionfire Hall before allowing an enemy to take the book.' James explained while Timmy arrived with a tray filled with a tea service and the access book. He handed over the book and then pointedly walked towards the sitting room with the tray.

'Very well done. If you were still students I would award some points.' Dumbledore replied.

'Do so anyway, I still want to pass him.' Sirius cheekily said. And when Dumbledore looked at him in wonder he explained: 'James scored more negative points in Hogwarts than me. So if you give him a few points every now and then I might still pass him.'

The headmaster just chuckled and shook his head at Sirius request. Then he looked around and said: 'I take it you are still planning for that summer camp?'

James smiled: 'Actually, this was the last obstacle. Well, beside that we still have to convince the parents and invite the kids of course. Can we call it Hogwarts approved? It might help.'

'Of course.' Dumbledore nodded, 'In fact, professor McGonagall was rather interested, she would like to visit.'

All three marauders looked surprised at that and with a chuckle the headmaster continued: 'I think she is rather surprised at how you three turned out.'

'Aww… Minnie always loved us.' Sirius protested.

Remus stopped his friend: 'We could probably use a real teacher to help us handle all those kids. Harry told us that the DA has over forty members by now.'

'Yes, it has quite a following.' The headmaster agreed, 'I attended a few of the meetings, and I have to say that you all should be proud of your kids.'

'We are.' James simply agreed: 'And I agree about Minerva. Beside that, it will be nice to see her again. But maybe we should abuse the moment and Timmy's tea service to have our regular meeting a bit earlier?'

'I don't see why not.' Dumbledore quickly agreed, 'Those scones looked delicious.'

A few minutes later it was Lily who asked: 'So, any news about Voldemort Albus?'

The headmaster considered the question for a few seconds before he answered: 'Well, I am quite sure that the dark lord regained his body a few days ago. Not alone did one of the magic detectors in my office notice an unusual amount of dark magic being used somewhere at the east coast, but my death eater spy also reported that his dark mark suddenly flared to life again.'

'Ah, Severus.' Lily nodded, and James and Sirius scowled. Both of them were still not convinced that Snape was really on their side now. Although they tried to be civil when they encountered him, if only to avoid Lily's scolding. She still had a bit of a weak spot for her childhood friend, although as far as James knew she had not really talked with him since the 'mudblood' incident in their fifth year.

'Yes, indeed.' Dumbledore agreed, 'So far, he has not been summoned though. I am not sure if this is because Voldemort does not want to attract attention or because he does not consider Severus trustworthy anymore.'

'But all other death munchers will also know that their leader has returned from the dead.' Sirius observed.

With a nod Dumbledore agreed: 'Quite so. It is possible that Voldemort has actually contacted some of them, although of course most of his more powerful followers are in Azkaban.'

James considered that for a few seconds: 'I believe that Lucius Malfoy would be his strongest ally outside of the prison. But although their wards are not half as strong as ours, I guess it still will be difficult to spy on them.'

'Quite so.' Dumbledore said, 'Especially since the minister is quite enamoured with Mr. Malfoy. I can not risk being detected while spying on Malfoy Manor.'

'Yeah, Amelia is quite mad about that.' Sirius dryly added, 'She says Malfoy is trying to ruin the ministry, and that Fudge is more than happy to help as long as he receives more and more money each time.'

'Does the ministry already realise that Voldemort has returned?' Frank wanted to know.

Sirius shook his head: 'No. And when Amelia tried to drop the suggestion that Voldemort might return someday most of the other department heads and the minister just laughed at her. They thought the very idea ridiculous. Only Arthur Weasley and Dirk Cresswell seemed to agree. And inside her own department there are only a few aurors who agree with her on this point, including Moody, but he is retiring next year.'

'Both Arthur and Alastor are in the order. Same for Kingsley and your cousin Nymphadora.' Dumbledore explained.

'Tonks is in the order?' Sirius wondered, 'I knew she joined with the aurors of course, but somehow I still think she is only thirteen or so… Maybe we should ask her to attend summer camp as well? A bit extra security and she is still young enough to connect with the kids.'

James shrugged: 'Why not I guess, but it may be a bit too late for her to arrange it. You know how auror schedules work.'

'Maybe I can convince Amelia to delegate Tonks as auror protection.' Sirius shrugged, 'Anyway, all together the vast majority of the ministry seems to think Voldemort is gone for good and that there is no reason to worry. In fact, Amelia's budget got cut down again this year.'

'I guess that auror protection might be an extra argument when we try and convince the parents to allow their kids to come.' Lily smiled, 'Although I am still not sure how we are going to get the kids interested to leave their homes for part of the summer.'

Dumbledore chuckled: 'I believe that will not be a problem. As I said before, I attended a few of the DA meetings and all the kids seemed to enjoy themselves.'

Lily nodded: 'I hope so. It will be nice to see all their friends. Oh, on a side note, did you already find a new defence against the dark arts teacher?'

With a deep sigh Dumbledore replied: 'No, it is very difficult to find someone. A lot of people seem to be afraid that the position is cursed, since we seem to be unable to hold a teacher for more than a year. And since we could not really explain what happened to Quirrel…'

'So there is no interest at all?' Alice asked, rather sceptical, after all a teaching position at Hogwarts was usually very popular.

'Well… so far I have one reaction. But I am hesitant to employ this person. Still, if I can not find anyone else I do not have a choice.' Dumbledore replied, and when he saw all the questioning looks he sighed again and said: 'It is Gilderoy Lockhart.'

'What? That fool!' Lily exclaimed, and James grinned. He still remembered how Lockhart had asked Lily out on a date while she was already going out with James. Lily had been surprised first and then asked him why she would even think about going out with a total airhead like Lockhart. The boy had looked very puzzled at that comment. As far as he could remember Lockhart never really had a talent for defence, or any other kind of magic. So he was not too surprised when Lily continued: 'There is no way that my son will waste a year of classes listening to that idiot.'

'I am inclined to agree with you.' The headmaster gravely nodded before he spread his hands: 'But if no one else steps up I may have to resort to him. Sadly, I do not have the time to teach the class myself, although I admit that it has been great fun for the last few weeks. I had almost forgotten the joys of teaching'

Lily looked thoughtful for a few moments, and then she suddenly said: 'If you can not find anyone else I will take the position. In the original timeline Harry's second year would be endangered by Slytherin's monster. I know that we can not be sure if it will happen again now that Voldemort is back already, but I want a competent defence teacher at Hogwarts. Not some pretty looking bumbling fool like Lockhart.'

James looked at her in surprise, although he quickly agreed with her reasoning. Still, it would disturb their own training and research… But on the other hand it would likely improve Harry's training. And they would have another way to quickly come to their son's aid if necessary. It was Frank who grinned and asked: 'Not afraid of that curse then?'

Lily shrugged: 'I only plan to teach one year anyway. Remus was supposed to teach in Harry's third year after all.' When Remus started to protest she shushed him and said: 'And you will. I think you will make a great teacher Remus. Maybe we can switch the position between the six of us for a few more years. That way we can assure that our kids get the right training and we will still have enough time for our own studies.'

'That would be wonderful.' Dumbledore smiled, and James wondered if he had planned all this somehow. The discussion quickly died down after that and some ten minutes later the headmaster went back to Hogwarts.

— The next day —

It was a nice and warm Saturday when James found himself walking towards the Burrow again. He had just visited the small but stately Greengrass home, but he had to admit that he preferred the rickety building that formed the home of the Weasleys. Still, the Greengrass family had been rather nice, if a bit focused on politics. Eventually the parents had agreed with the summer camp invitation just because they thought it was a good way for their daughters to make allies. And Astoria had been very excited when she heard that she was welcome as well. They had decided to invite younger siblings of the DA members who were bound to go to Hogwarts after the summer. That way they hoped to get the new first years interested in joining the DA as well.

He heard laughter coming from behind the building and so he just walked around it. Once there he found three Weasleys gathered around a battered table. They were slowly browsing through some kind of book. He coughed and Arthur looked up. For a moment he looked surprised but then he smiled: 'James, how nice to see you.'

Molly and the young girl looked up as well. It took James a few moments to remember her name. 'Arthur, Molly, Ginny, nice to see you as well. I hope I am not disturbing anything?'

'Oh no, we were just browsing through the pictures of our Christmas vacation.' Molly replied.

'We went to see my brother Charlie in Rumania!' Ginny excitedly added.

'Rumania? That's nice.' James smiled, before he added: 'Do you have plans for the summer as well?'

'No, but I am sure we will enjoy our time at the Burrow.' Molly smiled, 'Oh, where are my manners, do you want something to drink?'

'Thanks, but I am fine.' James quickly replied, he had too much tea at the Greengrass family already, 'I just want to ask you something.'

'Alright… But take a seat at least.' Molly said.

He did so and jumped right into it: 'Did your sons tell you about the defence association?'

Arthur was the first to answer: 'Yes, they are actually very enthusiastic about it. Which is odd, because Fred and George normally only get excited about pranks and quidditch.'

'According to Fred and George I can join as well when I go to Hogwarts.' Ginny smiled.

'We even got less notes from school after Christmas.' Molly added with a bemused expression. Apparently she was still weirded out by that.

James grinned when he wondered if his mother had looked the same during the second part of his sixth year. He had drastically put down on the rule breaking to win Lily's attention. 'I am not sure if that is because of the DA, but I guess it will take some time away from rule breaking. Anyway, during the Christmas vacation we talked about it with Harry. And somehow Lily mentioned that muggle organisations sometimes have summer camps. Of course Harry was excited by the idea, so we have been preparing Lionfire Hall to host a summer camp during the second week of the summer vacation. Right now we are visiting all the parents to see if their kids are allowed to come.'

Ginny looked disappointed while her parents looked to each other. Arthur seemed cheerful, but Molly was more doubtful. James quickly added: 'We are also inviting all younger brothers and sisters who will go to Hogwarts next year. So it is a nice way for Ginny to get to know some of her classmates as well. And we are planning a lot of fun activities that do not involve magic, it is more of a fun camp than a learning experience.'

Immediately the girls face brightened: 'Oh! Are we going to play paintball again?' James nodded and she turned to her parents: 'Can I go? Can I go? Please!'

Her parents smiled at her, but did not reply yet. Molly asked: 'Are you sure it is a good idea to get so many kids together? I mean, you know about Dumbledore's news right? He mentioned you and some friends would work with the Order.'

James nodded: 'I know. And Lionfire Hall is in full defensive mode. It is part of the reason why we are so late with inviting everybody, we needed to find a way to get so many kids inside the wards.' Both Weasley adults looked impressed at that, they knew how much energy it took to keep up that kind of wards. James continued: 'Beside that, Sirius is trying to arrange some auror protection and professor McGonagall will most likely join us as well. So the kids will be very well protected.'

Arthur frowned: 'So both the ministry and Hogwarts are involved? Impressive.'

With a shrug James replied: 'Sirius is married to the head of the DMLE. So he is trying to abuse that. And we are in regular contact with Dumbledore, he is very enthusiastic about the DA and this camp. Mostly because it helps to build bridges between the four houses.'

Dumbledore's approval seemed to do the trick, because suddenly Molly's expression also lightened for a second. Then she frowned again: 'But what about Percy? I think he is the only one that is not inside the DA.'

'That might actually work out quite good.' Arthur thought aloud. Molly looked at him in wonder and he continued: 'Well, I noticed that since Charlie went to Rumania Percy has been more and more withdrawn. He is not a bad kid, but he is much too serious to really get on with the twins, and Ron and Ginny are a lot younger. Maybe it will be good for him to have a week with just his parents.'

Molly looked thoughtful: 'Maybe you are right. I sometimes have the feeling I neglect him a bit, but that is just because I know he is not going to blow up the house. Unlike some others… Still, I like to have all the kids at home.'

'It is only one week though.' Arthur replied.

'I guess.' Molly reluctantly agreed, 'Are you sure it won't be a problem? I mean, Fred and George can be a handful.'

James grinned: 'I think we can handle a few prankers.'

'Oh right… I almost forgot about your own school career.' Molly dryly replied, 'As long as you don't go and exchange notes with them.'

James whistled innocently. Arthur tried to hide his laughter from Molly, but Ginny laughed loud and long. As soon as she stopped James said: 'So, can I welcome you and your three brothers at the second Saturday of the break?'

Ginny looked at her parents. Both of them nodded at her and Ginny smiled and squealed: 'Yes!'

'Great.' James smiled in return, 'Just take the floo to Lionfire Hall. Oh, and since the wards are up it will only accept Ginny, Ron, Fred and George. If anyone else wants to visit for whatever reason please send an owl first.'

'Of course.' Arthur nodded.

James stood up: 'Great! I'll have to go then. I am heading to Seamus Finnegan's parents now.'

Arthur looked puzzled at the name for a second, but then he just shrugged and said: 'Good luck.'

_A/N: And another James chapter, mostly because I needed the little talk about Voldemort. And I could not really see Dumbledore discussing those things with Harry at this time. Next chapter will be about the summer camp._

_Oh, and with this chapter the story passes the 100,000 words border. Somehow that sounds cool;) Although I guess I will need another chapter to pass it without A/Ns._

_Twelve reviews this time:_

_Blue luver5000: The inner circle will be a small elite part of the DA. They will learn some more advanced magic like occlumency and more advanced combat magic. I think there will be some ten to fifteen kids, although I have not really made a member list yet;)_

_Teufel1987, HarnGin: Well, Lockhart does love himself, but he lacks the magical skill to cast even a normal protego;) So I am not sure if he will be able to do it. As for the imperius, you may be right about that one. Maybe I'll get back to that in another chapter if I can prevent it from becoming a too long and too boring discussion…_

_Happylady, Michaeldavidgeng, ILikeComps, Rori Potter, Penny is wise, Tsukiyo Tenshi: Thanks!_

_Guest #1: Harry is an eleven year old noble git. Beside that, knowing what is really going on might help motivate the other kids I guess. _

_Guest #2: I guess wizards could make loads of money by opening an amusement park ;)_

_Man of Faith: That's good to hear :) And the results of those magical theory lessons will show up again sometime._


	29. Summer camp

**Summer camp**

— First day —-

Harry, Susan and their two fathers, or father-figures at least, were welcoming the DA members who arrived by floo. Neville and Hermione and their parents were collecting the muggleborn students with two rented auto buses. Lily had argued that it would be a bit too much for the muggle parents to apparate or floo their kids to summer camp. Right now she and Remus were putting up the large tents that would house all the DA members for the next week, or more likely, they were overseeing how the house elves did it.

The Patil twins had been the first to arrive, and then new people had come in every minute or so. Right now Daphne Greengrass, her sister Astoria and Tracey Davis came out of the fireplace. The two Slytherin girls quickly said hi to Harry and Susan, introduced themselves to James and Sirius and after Tracey asked for Hermione both of them walked towards the mixed group of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff first year girls who were gathered together. Astoria quickly followed them.

As soon as they left James said: 'It is almost unreal to see Slytherins mixing up with the other houses. It was way different in our time.'

Harry just shrugged: 'They asked to join a while ago, and they seem nice enough.'

Sirius snorted: 'Yeah, especially the blond one.'

Harry and James simply grinned but Susan slapped Sirius on his arm. The marauder looked confused and said: 'What? Just look at her, she is very pretty… Not as pretty as you of course, but still.' When Susan shook her head he continued: 'What do you think Harry?'

'Oh… ah, well, I don't know.' Harry stammered before he said: 'Oh look, here are the Weasley's!'

It was a good thing for Harry that two marauder-worshipping twins, a very excited Ginny and a laughing Ron were more than enough to distract everybody from Sirius question. And when Ginny had been pointed to her fellow soon-to-be-first year, the twins had been promised a long talk with the marauders somewhere during the camp and Ron had been satisfied with the promise of a few quidditch matches Remus and Lily walked in and started to comment about the large group. Harry actually took a few moments to count heads before he said: 'I think the Weasley's were the last to arrive. At least, for the magical group.'

Lily nodded, 'And I just got a patronus from Alice, they should be here soon. Maybe we should wait outside and welcome them?'

'Sounds good.' James agreed, before he coughed loudly a few times. Eventually everybody was looking at him: 'Your friends will soon be arriving at the gate. We thought it would be nice to welcome them, so if you all leave your bags here and follow us? The house elves will deliver the bags to your tents.'

A few minutes later the first bus, driven by Jack Granger, arrived. It was quickly followed by the second bus and soon enough a large group of kids was happily chatting with each other. Once again it took James a bit of effort to get their attention, but eventually everybody followed them towards the tents. Once there they found professor McGonagall and a young woman with short bright pink hair waiting for them. James turned around once more and said: 'Right, since this is the first day we figured we should give you all some free time. As you can see there are six tents, three with blue flags and three with red flags. The blue ones are for the boys, the red ones for the girls. You are free to pick a bed for yourself. Just tap the pillow with your wand and a house elf will deliver your luggage to that bed. So, for today, just enjoy yourself and look around a bit. Harry, Susan, Hermione and Neville know their way around here. And of course you can also ask one of the adults.'

Lily took over: 'Yes, maybe I should introduce those adults.' She started pointing at them: 'Most of you know professor McGonagall of course. Next to her is Tonks, she is an auror.' This got some impressed reactions from the kids, but Lily simply moved on: 'Then we have Frank and Alice Longbottom, Neville's parents. Next to them are Hermione's parents, Jack and Edna. They are muggles and will show us a few interesting muggle games during this week.' Ron cheered, which earned him some surprised glances from the other students who had not yet heard about paintball. Lily moved on: 'This is Sirius Black, Susans uncle. Next to him is Remus Lupin, a good friend of the family. And we are James and Lily, Harry's parents. If there is a problem you can approach any of us. Are there any questions so far?'

There were none, obviously everybody wanted to start exploring the grounds. And after a quick warning by James that they should not shoot spells at any of the statues he let them go. Harry immediately ran into one of the tents and selected a bed away from the door. He wanted to walk outside again and show some people around, but he was stopped by the Weasley twins who spoke together: 'Harry, our good friend! Don't you think it is time for us to meet the marauders?'

Harry just laughed and said: 'Oh fine, why not. Come on then.'

He was lucky to find all three of them chatting with Frank Longbottom and Jack Granger. As soon as his father noticed him he asked: 'Hey Harry, what's up?'

'Oh, this are Fred and George.' He just randomly pointed to each of them in turn, without a clue if he actually got it right, 'They wanted to meet with the marauders.'

All three marauders grinned while Jack asked: 'The who?'

Frank laughed at the shocked looks that the three marauders suddenly shot to Jack before he explained: 'The three of them formed a sort of pranking club during their Hogwarts career. I guess those two want to know about that.'

Fred and George eagerly nodded. Then Remus asked: 'I take it that you found our map?' When they nodded again he continued: 'How did you work out the password?'

'We found some useful spells in the library.' Fred replied.

'It was a shame that we did not know the magic revealing spell yet.' George added.

Fred nodded in agreement: 'It would have saved a lot of time.'

'But at least it helped our research along.' George concluded excitedly.

'I hesitate to ask, but what kind of research?' Jack wanted to know.

'Well, research into joke items of course.' Fred replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

George grinned and pulled a small item out of his pocket. It looked like a small biscuit filled with cream. 'I think that without those revealing spells we would have needed years to make this work. Watch this.' George said before eating it. Seconds later George was replaced by a huge yellow canary who happily whistled a song and stepped around a bit. A few seconds later the canary changed back into George again.

'That was absolutely brilliant.' Remus commented while the others cheered and clapped, 'How did you do that? It is potion based I guess? I admit that always was my weakest subject.'

'Remus, or Moony, was our researcher.' James clarified, 'I am Prongs by the way.'

'And I am Padfoot. Lets not talk about Wormtail.' Sirius happily added, and before the twins could ask why not he continued: 'Can I try one of those? It looks like fun.'

George hesitated: 'I am not sure if that would be a good idea.'

'We have not yet tested them on anyone but ourselves. So we are not sure how body mass and things like that would influence the transformation.' Fred clarified.

'In fact, we are not even sure how to start testing.' George added.

'How did you make it work for yourselves then?' Frank wondered.

Fred shrugged: 'We are okay with taking risks for ourselves, but we need to know a bit more of the risks involved before we recruit other testers.'

Harry wanted to say that he was surprised by such a responsible attitude, but Jack was faster: 'I know a bit of the many laws involved in testing medicine in the muggle world. Does the wizarding world have the same laws?'

Fred and George just looked at each other before they shrugged, so it was James who replied: 'No, in fact there are no real laws involved. Basically, if you hurt someone with a potion or spell that you designed you will be tried for it. In fact, in some cases you will be called to court even if someone else abuses a spell or potion you designed.'

Jack nodded and frowned: 'I might be able to hand you some muggle books about medicine testing. It might help.'

'That would be great.' Fred smiled.

'We never really thought about looking in the muggle world for help.' George said.

'Beside that, we would have no idea where to look.' Fred concluded.

'Doesn't your father work in muggle relations?' Frank asked.

'Yes, but unless we need plugs we do not really expect much help from him.' Fred grinned.

'Plugs?' Sirius wondered before he said: 'Never mind. Tell me what other things you two have made up. Oh, and after that we should talk about the pranks you pulled.'

Fred and George smiled identical evil smiles and started to explain about headless hats, puking pastilles, magical fireworks and nosebleed nougats among many other inventions. Some of them were almost ready for production, but many of them still needed a lot of work. Eventually Remus said: 'I am impressed. We never really worked on items, most of our pranks involved charming or transfiguring things.'

'Well, we want to open a joke shop sometime. So we need gadgets.' George replied.

James who had looked thoughtful for a while suddenly looked up and said: 'A joke shop? That sounds interesting.'

Fred shrugged: 'We hope to make enough money by selling things like the canary creams during our Hogwarts years. But most likely we will have to get normal jobs for a few years first.'

Sirius wanted to say something, but James quickly held up a hand to stop him: 'We might have a proposal for you.'

The twins looked at him in surprise while James took the time to sort his thoughts: 'Those headless hats, they work with an extended disillusionment spell that activates when you put them on, right?'

'More or less, we had to alter the spell a bit.' Fred agreed.

'Beside that, we still can not get it to keep working while you walk around.' George added.

James nodded: 'Could you do the same with a shield spell?'

Both twins looked surprised at that. Then George said: 'I think so. That would be fun, let someone shoot a spell at you and just ignore it without raising your wand.'

James grinned: 'I was thinking more about using them in duels. Anyway, what I wanted to suggest is that we pay the two of you to create a few things like that. I do not expect some kind of invulnerable armor, but everything that could help us or the DA members in actual fights would be great.'

Fred and George frowned and silently communicated with each other. Eventually George said: 'That would mean we have less time to create joke items.'

'True.' Remus nodded, 'But think of the time you would save by opening the joke shop right after you get your NEWTs.'

They brightened at that and together replied: 'Okay, we are interested.'

The adults and Harry laughed at that. It was James who said: 'Good to hear. We will work out the details some other time. There is one extra condition though.' Both twins looked worried and James continued: 'You will have to get a good amount of OWLs and NEWTs. I am afraid your mother would kill the three of us if she thought that you two performed poorly because of this.'

The twins nodded and Fred said: 'I guess we can do that.'

'It is not like the classes are too difficult.' George added.

'Good, now go have fun. I will discuss things with Lily and Sirius and then we'll talk about it with you two again.' James concluded.

The twins saluted but before they could leave Remus said: 'Oh, before you go. Do you have the map with you?'

'Of course.' George said.

'Can I borrow it for a day or two? I need to check some things.' Remus said. George just shrugged, pulled the map out of one of his pockets and handed it over. Remus just smiled before he motioned to Jack and the two men walked away even before Harry could pull Fred and George towards the quidditch field where some brooms were already zooming around.

— Second day —

The second day of the camp started with an awful lot of quidditch. All the available Gryffindor quidditch players, three chasers and two beaters, told Harry that he had to be their new seeker. According to Fred he would display some of their new fireworks to celebrate McLaggen leaving the team. It was too bad that the Gryffindor quidditch captain was not in the DA, but Harry figured that he would have a good chance with the backup of all other team members. Susan also got a lot of compliments for her beating, but no one really offered to let her replace one of the Weasley twins.

Those twins, and their younger brother Ron, had been shocked when they found out how well Ginny could fly. She was one of the more talented chasers and members of each house started to try and recruit her. Of course the twins interfered, stating that Ginny was a Weasley and had to end up in Gryffindor. Beside that, George admitted he was scared of the idea of sending bludgers to his baby sister. According to him his mother would kill him if she heard about it.

There were several other surprises, especially among the former first years who had not been able to try out so far. And even the people who were less enthusiastic about quidditch had a good time. Either with the football game that Dean Thomas had organised together with Jack Granger or by cheering on the players of one of the two games. During lunch Sirius dryly commented that even Dobby would soon start to complain about the work pressure if the hungry kids kept eating so much. Lily just smiled and added that tomorrow would probably be even worse.

After the lunch Remus asked for a show of what the DA could do. And soon enough the quidditch field was filled with numerous small groups who were exchanging spell fire with each other. The adults, beside the Grangers, walked from group to group and offered advice and help. Harry had to admit that they had missed their parents help during the year. In a way, the four of them had been the most experienced fighters at the DA, but it was nothing compared to the actual battle experience of their parents. Ginny and Astoria respectively followed Lily and professor McGonagall and carefully listened to the advices the older witches gave. Eventually Lily even asked a group to start shooting harmless hexes at Ginny and asked her to dodge. She was actually quite good at it, and Astoria was rather disappointed when it was her turn and she lasted not even half as long as Ginny.

After a few hours the adults allowed the kids to go back to their quidditch and football. Harry actually joined the football for a while and thought it was fun enough. Although it was not half as fun as quidditch of course, he missed his broom and the more chaotic situation of quidditch. His preference had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was mercilessly taunted when Daphne shot a ball through his legs.

— Third day —

On the third day Jack and Edna asked everybody to go dress in old clothes and then meet them to the quidditch field again. Harry was not the only one to cheer when he saw the familiar obstacles that were spread around the field, although most people just looked at them in wonder. This changed when the Grangers showed some paintball guns and gave pretty much the same speech as they had done last year.

Most of the kids had heard stories about last years quidditch event from Harry, Hermione, Neville, Susan or Ron during the last few days. And all of them were excited to give it a try now. They would start with a huge free for all in which everybody could become familiar with the guns. All of the adults, except Edna Granger and professor McGonagall, joined as well and soon enough large numbers of small coloured balls were flying around. Eventually Fred and George decided to change the game and they each swallowed one of their canary creams. Of course all the others could not resist shooting at the two large canaries.

Sirius apparently thought it was a good idea. He pulled out his wand and transfigured Remus into an ostrich. James retaliated by changing Sirius into a large poodle. A few seconds later Remus thanked James for his help by turning him into a kangaroo. And while McGonagall commented on the impressive transfiguration work and tried to explain the way transfiguration magic worked to Edna the three marauders turned each other into more and more ridiculous animals. Eventually Lily managed to calm down everyone enough to gather for a late lunch, although she forbid the marauders to join them until they got washed up. The three men resembled liquid rainbows when they slowly walked back to the manor for a change of clothes.

After the lunch they did some regular team games that revolved around capturing a flag and returning it to your own flag. Because there were so many players they were grouped into four large teams and there was chaos all around until Hermione introduced a new tactic for her team during the fourth round. She found a position in front of their flag that was well protected by some obstacles and let her team form two long lines. One standing, and the line in front kneeling down. As soon as anyone tried to approach their line they would unleash a storm of bullets that would take the attacker out every time. They won three games in a row by simply taking out many enemies before even moving for the other flags.

However, in the next round Remus and George levelled their line by what they called a 'paint bomb'. Basically they had magically fused a lot of bullets together, used a banishing spell to fire it at the defensive line of Hermione's team where it exploded and took down most of the team. After the match Hermione and several of her team mates protested that it was unfair. Edna just smiled and suggested that magic would be free to use during the next round.

It was chaos.

The protego shields were a nice addition to the game. But disillusionment charms were a bit over the top though, and flags zooming over the pitch due to summoning charms pretty much destroyed the idea of a capture the flag game. Of course Sirius had to gather the most attention by protecting himself with a strange charm that made a large number of small stone pebbles hover around him and intercept any bullet that came close to him. By now the ideas of 'capture the flag' and 'team play' had long ago been abandoned in the chaotic match, but many players grouped together to try and shoot through Sirius' strange spell. They were unsuccessful and got attacked in the back when Edna decided that all of the players who had been shot during the round could enter the pitch again. Eventually Sirius dropped his shield because it blocked his own attacks as well and he immediately got hit by about twenty bullets.

On the other side of the pitch Lily and James were summoning water balloons and banishing them at each other and random other players, which looked rather disturbing when the paint on people's clothes started to run. Tonks tried to stop them with a few strong gusts of wind, but Lily simply raised a magical wall to block her spells.

In the meanwhile Remus and Harry had teamed up as well. Remus had conjured two dark red ribbons and had bound them around their foreheads, then they had each claimed a second gun from the box near Edna before strolling on the field side by side firing non stop out of all their four guns while Remus somehow managed to cast a charm that played the theme song of a muggle movie. Of course, as soon as enough people noticed their killing spree they were blasted out of the field by numerous bullets.

Susan had also found a team. Together with the Weasley twins and Alicia Spinnet she had climbed on top of one of the larger obstacles. They had summoned a bright red banner and were shouting crazy comments about their 'castle' to anyone who approached them. Neville was not sure if he should feel upset or elated while Susan told him there was no room for 'hunky hunks' in their castle. Of course, she followed her comment with a bright orange bullet between his eyes, which made Neville tempt to go with the first choice.

After a very long time Edna had to blow her whistle very loudly for a few times before she finally got the attention of everybody. 'You guys should hit the showers, it is dinner time. Oh, and if you have any bruises professor McGonagall here has offered to heal them.'

It was a good thing that more than half of the people decided to line up in front of the professor, because the magical tents had not even close to enough showers for everybody to clean up at the same time. After dinner Edna suggested to do another day of paintball tomorrow. The cheers died down a little when she said that only the protego spell would be allowed tomorrow, but everybody still seemed excited about the idea.

— Fifth day —

On the fifth day it started to rain during breakfast, and since it did not look likely that the weather would improve anytime soon everybody was invited inside for a day of games. The muggle games like clue, monopoly and risk gathered a lot of attention, and it was clear to see that the muggleborns enjoyed being on the explaining side for a change.

Harry and several other boys were mesmerized by a muggle miniature skirmish game called warhammer that the adults had bought somewhere during the school year. There were four large painted armies to choose from, and Remus had bewitched them to act like wizarding chess pieces. At the end of the day they still did not understand all the rules, but it was a lot of fun to manoeuver the armies around and watch them attack each other.

However, the event that got the most attention was Remus almost beating Ron in a wizarding chess match. For a while it looked like Remus was actually going to win, but due to a brilliant move with his remaining knight Ron managed to save the game. It was very close though.

During the evening Sirius and James asked Harry to be their 'witness' while they made a deal with the Weasley twins. He was supposed to act as a contact person between the twins and the marauders during the school year. Basically the two marauders would give the twins a small amount of money each year to buy some materials. The twins would use part of their time to work on magical defence items and if they finished Hogwarts with enough OWLs and NEWTs to make their mom proud James and Sirius would help them set up a joke shop. Fred and George suggested a loan, but James and Sirius just smiled and said that it all depended on how the twins would behave during the next four years.

The twins tried to get a more clear outline of their plans. But all the marauders wanted to say was they would help them. Eventually they just shrugged and did a victory dance before leaving the room. Sirius called to them: 'Oh, you can go to Remus to get your map back, he is done with it!'

— Sixth day —

The sixth day resembled the free for all hour that usually ended the DA meetings. Although Lily heavily suggested that everybody would at least use part of the day for spell work or duelling. Harry and most others obediently did so, but much of the time was filled with quidditch, paintball and games.

At the end of the day the elves joined the others at dinner. The men were planning a barbeque. Of course, even with magic they did not manage to prevent enough meat from burning, and the house elves eventually had to help. But everybody liked having them around, especially the easily excited Dobby was a hit. Some of the muggleborns were quite surprised when they learned that Hogwarts had a large house elf staff as well. Apparently they thought the castle was kept clean by magic, which was not unreasonable of course.

They concluded the last day with an old comedy movie. The muggleborns mostly enjoyed the reactions of the pureblood kids to both the movie and the TV in general and the movie. All of them already knew the movie anyway.

— Seventh day —

Last night the movie had ended after midnight. And today it seemed like all of the DA members finally were tired. Or maybe they were sad that the camp was going to end today. However, the atmosphere was rather subdued and silent. Only when it was almost time to go something happened. Ron proved he was a son of his father when he loudly asked: 'Can we go home with the bus things as well? It looks like much more fun than the floo.'

Many purebloods loudly voiced their agreement, and soon enough the adults agreed with the idea as well. There was a bit of a problem when some of the pureblood kids had no idea what muggle village or town would be closest to their homes. But eventually professor McGonagall made a quick visit to Hogwarts where she copied the addresses.

Harry jumped into the Longbottom bus before his parents could stop him. He wanted to stay with the group for a bit longer, after today he would be stuck at Lionfire Hall for almost five weeks before Hogwarts started again. And although Hermione, Susan and Neville would of course visit a lot they would all go on a two or three week vacation sometime while his own parents had decided it would be too risky for the Potter family with Voldemort on the loose. And so he just popped down next to Ron while behind him Frank told Lily that they would return Harry safe and sound.

_A/N: Sorry about the slow update, but between a few birthday and a few job interviews I simply did not have enough time… At least it is a long update though, I wanted to have the summer camp out of the way in one chapter. After all, I want to get started with second year ;)_

_So, to reviews again:_

_Tessia: Somewhere in the beginning of the story James and Lily agreed they would not have other children until Voldemort was dealt with. I just assumed the others would agree with that reasoning;) Well, beside the Grangers who do not know all of it yet, but they only had one child in canon as well… _

_Teufel1987: What do you mean with factored in? Ask him for help? Or prepare for his interruptions?;) Amelia tried to look for possible help at the ministry, and Dumbledore will of course use his connections. But I am not sure if the group around James or the group around Harry will become really involved in politics. I am quite sure they will not go looking for it, but it is possible that the ministry will start pestering them sometime. Fudge will show up in a few chapters at least… It helps that Harry is not really the boy-who-lived anymore I guess._

_Happylady, Artera Lysander, Mwinter1, TsukiyoTenshi, Jbfritz,MSupernatural, Rori Potter, Sanbeegoldiewhitey, Penny is wise, : Thanks!_

_Cassiopeia Potter: Thanks, I will edit both after uploading this chapter;)_

_Sirius009: But only my last nine or ten chapters happened during the timeline of PS (if you ignore the prologue at least),I am quite sure that is less than 75k words. Not that it really matters, more action will appear soon, but I will keep taking my time to reach the final battle…_

_Blue Luver 5000: I am not sure if Molly would approve of what happened in this chapter… At least it might make Fred and George actually work for their OWLs;)_

_Man of Faith: To be fair, he was invited;) But he did not hesitate to use the opportunity I guess._

_MAFITA: Yep, this was faster;) Beside that, I did not really have a reasonable way to let Harry win a fight against an adult at this time. It is not like he did that well against Quirrel in canon until his mothers protection kicked in. But without Lily's sacrifice that would be difficult to achieve. And although I think Harry is a bit more ready to duel right now than he was at the end of the first canon book it is still a bit too soon for actual fights. Oh, and no problem about the two reviews;)_


	30. Start of second year

**Start of second year**

Although Harry had been afraid of a dull summer the last five weeks had flew by. Hermione, Neville and Susan had visited Lionfire Hall a lot, so it was not too bad that he was not allowed to leave Lionfire Hall too often. In fact, he had only been to Neville's birthday and a few weeks later to Diagon Alley. Neville birthday had been rather quiet, but the adults had said that they were organising a big double celebration for both Harry and Neville for the next day. To their pleasant surprise a lot of the DA members had showed up on Harry's birthday, most of them carrying presents for both Harry and Neville. The group was only half as big as the one that had attended the camp, since many students were on vacation, but it was a fun day.

Diagon Alley had been a bit less fun. It was nice enough at first, but in the bookstore they ran into some famous author called Gilderoy Lockhart who was signing his new book. The man had positively beamed when he saw the Potters and had tried to get his 'fellow heroes' to join him on the stage. As soon as both James and Lily pointed their wands at him he swallowed and reconsidered though. Still, it had dampened their spirits a bit and for the rest of the day Lily had kept complaining about Lockhart. Hermione had tried to argue that someone who wrote that many books could not be that bad, but Lily just snorted and told Hermione to cross-reference the dates in Lockharts books sometime. Hermione had just hesitantly nodded to that.

But beside those two days Harry had spent all his time in Lionfire Hall. Still, between the visits of his friends and all the extra training his parents and Remus, every now and then joined by Sirius or the Longbottoms, gave them it hardly mattered. He simply did not have the time to get bored. Their occlumency shields had gotten another few test runs, and they had worked on their animagus training again. So far, none of them had achieved anything visible, but Harry was starting to feel something odd during their practises. The feeling was hard to describe, it almost felt like something was not as it should be. James just smiled at him when he tried to explain it and said he remembered a similar feeling.

Beside that Remus and Lily had mostly worked on their control. They wanted to make sure that Harry and his friends could control the amount of power for each spell that they used. According to Remus it would be especially important while fighting skilled opponents who would not be overwhelmed by a quick full powered attack. During those fights it would be important to save as much energy as you could, so they were trying to vary the power level of the shields and hexes they used. Lily also explained how some spells looked stronger when you poured more power into them. For example, the expelliarmus spell produced a red beam of light. The beam would grow thicker and brighter when more power was invested. However, some spells looked the same no matter how much power went into them. And Lily explained that those last spells were great to exhaust an opponent. After all, it was impossible for an opponent to use weak shields if he did not know how strong the incoming spell was. It was a difficult trick to master, but a nice challenge as well.

James, and whenever he joined them Sirius, took a more direct approach. They simply duelled with Harry and which ever of his friends were around. Both of them were vastly more powerful than the kids. James explained that their own magical cores still had a lot of growing to do and compared it to the development of physical strength. Twelve year old kids were in general not able to defeat an adult in hand to hand fighting; it was pretty much the same with magic. Apparently their magic would develop very quickly until they were sixteen, after that it would still grow but a lot slower until around their twentieth birthday it would reach its full potential. Even then, your actual magical power would depend a lot on how often and in what way you used it. Again, just like physical strength.

Still, although the kids were not yet strong enough to seriously threaten James or Sirius, the adults often fought defensively and took the time to give comments about the kids fighting styles. They focused a lot on their stance and how it weakened them for different counter attacks. And they told the kids to keep on moving all the time, so they could better evade spells. Beside that, they also commented on the offensive abilities of the kids and showed them how they could make it more difficult for their opponents.

Of course, both quidditch fanatics insisted on regular quidditch practise. After all, they knew that Harry had a serious chance to join the Gryffindor quidditch team. Hermione, and even Neville, sometimes complained that they would prefer to do a bit more practise duelling. And every now and then Frank and Alice actually took over from James and Sirius and kept on practising. But both Harry and Susan always took the opportunity for some more quidditch practise. Duelling was nice, and important and all that, but quidditch was much better.

There were only a few days of the summer vacation remaining when Lily and Remus suddenly called everybody into the house. Neville, Susan and Hermione were all visiting today, including all their parents. So it was a very large group that gathered around the large table in the dining room. On the table were two pieces of empty but old looking parchment. Remus waited until everybody found a seat before he stood up and grinned: 'I am proud to present the new and improved Marauders Map! Lily was kind enough to activate them when she visited Hogwarts yesterday.'

Sirius and James cheered while Lily shook her head, but most of the others just looked confused. Harry tried to remember where he had heard the name before, most likely in one of the tales of the marauders Hogwarts' adventures. He focused on Remus when the man pointed his wand to one of the parchments and calmly said: 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good.'

To general amazement the piece of parchment enlarged itself into poster format. A picture with a stag, a large dog and a werewolf appeared for a few seconds before it was replaced by a large map. Or rather, several large maps since every floor of Hogwarts was depicted on the parchment. Harry even saw one of the stairways between the third and fourth floor slowly rotating to a new position. Then, to his amazement he saw colourful dots moving around the castle. Two dark blue ones, named Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall were in the headmasters office. And several other dark blue ones showed a few other teachers who were already at Hogwarts, most in their own office. There were also various white dots moving around with names like Nearly Headless Nick, the Grey Lady and the Bloody Baron. And a bright neon orange dot named Peeves was zooming around the transfiguration classroom.

Edna Granger was the first to comment: 'I did not realise your school was this big Hermione.'

For a moment Harry wondered how she had known that it was indeed Hogwarts, but then he saw the large gothic letters at the top of the map that said 'Hogwarts, home of the marauders'. Hermione enthusiastically replied: 'Oh yes, although many of the classrooms are unused.' Then she started a quick tour through the maps for her parents which unsurprisingly started with the library. Hermione's favourite place in all of Hogwarts.

As soon as she was finished Remus explained: 'As you can see the map also shows who is walking around in Hogwarts. The original edition of this map would show everybody in the same colour, but we have now added a bit of colour coding. Dark blue for teachers, white for ghosts and bright orange for Peeves.'

Harry quickly looked around the map until he found the blue-white dot of their history professor.

'Peeves?' Edna wondered.

'The poltergeist.' Remus replied as if it was obvious. Edna simply nodded, most likely accepting it as another magical thing.

Sirius took over: 'Students will be light blue, Filch and that stupid cat of him are black. Hagrid and Fang are green, look they are just coming back from the forest.'

Sure enough they saw two green dots leaving a dark gray area called 'forbidden forest'. Neville was the first to ask the obvious question: 'The map does not work in the forest then?'

'No, there is too much interfering magic in it.' Remus explained, 'Beside that, the scale for the grounds is rather large, so it would not help much anyway. See how small Hagrids hut looks on the map?'

They all nodded and Lily said: 'People who do not have any relation to Hogwarts will be depicted in a bright red.'

'Oh, and we have another very interesting new feature.' Remus said, before turning to Hermione's father: 'Jack actually thought about it, so maybe you can show it?'

There were a lot of surprised looks at this, but Jack simply nodded and said: 'Map, find Albus Dumbledore.'

Immediately a small flag grew out of the dot that depicted the headmaster and slowly waved around. Remus smiled and said: 'It is not that important right now, but when there are several hundred students milling around it will be useful.'

Harry grinned, this map was awesome. 'So it shows everybody inside Hogwarts?' he asked.

Remus nodded, but James said: 'Beside the house elves. Their magic is so different from ours that we can not track them, even with Timmy's help we could not work it out.'

Next it was Amelia who spoke up: 'Can you make more maps like this? They could be very useful for our department.'

Lily nodded: 'We made three so far. One will be used by me and two others will go to the kids. We plan to make three more so we can keep one at home and all of the kids will have their own map. But it takes a lot of time to craft one. Still, I guess we could create one for your department as well, you never know when something happens at Hogwarts.'

Amelia shook her head: 'That would be great, but it was not really what I meant. Can you make it for other locations?'

Lily hesitated: 'I do not think so… Remus?'

Remus looked thoughtful but eventually said: 'It is unlikely, those maps only work because of the high amount of magic that floats around Hogwarts. I guess it is possible that the ministry and maybe Diagon Alley could support similar maps… But I can not be sure. You should take your husband to work someday Amelia, he could test it out.'

Amelia turned to Sirius, her surprise obvious in her eyes. Sirius just shrugged: 'What? I helped with the original map you know. I am more than a pretty face!'

Everybody laughed at Sirius and Lily used the distraction to exchange a few meaningful glances with Harry and the other three students. They all nodded, after all she and the other adults had told them often enough that there was a possibility that someone would allow a monster into Hogwarts. They knew they should check the maps every now and then for bright red dots.

Eventually one of the maps was handed to Harry and the other one to Susan. According to Sirius both of them were marauder kids after all, which earned him a hug from Susan. Harry realised it would also make sure that both the boys and girls dormitories had one map each.

— five days later —

Harry was chatting with Hermione during lunch. Neville had asked Susan to join him and check upon a herbology project that he had started in one of the greenhouses and so the two of them had joined up with their Gryffindor year mates in the great hall. Since Parvati and Lavender were hotly debating the colour of their lipgloss and the boys were talking about the differences between football and quidditch Harry realised it was up to him to start a discussion that Hermione would enjoy as well. Eventually he settled on talking about the few classes they had attended so far and how they were already looking more complicated then last years.

They had just started to talk about the first DA meeting that would happen in two days and how they were going to organise it when Hermione looked up to a point behind Harry and smiled. Harry turned around and saw Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, both looked rather happy about something. So Harry said: 'Daphne, Tracey, nice to see you. What got you two so excited?'

Tracey grinned: 'We just had our first DADA class.'

'Oh, and what did you think of my mother?' Harry asked.

Now it was Dapnhe who smiled: 'We can see where you got your teaching skills. But of course we already knew that from camp.' Harry blushed and her smile grew even bigger when she continued: 'You should have seen what she did to Malfoy though.'

'What?' Harry wanted to know, while a lot of the Gryffindors around him quieted down and turned their attention to the two Slytherin girls.

Tracey took over again: 'Your mother was talking about the course subjects and she said she was going to focus on two things; battlefield awareness and preparing the battlefield. Then Malfoy muttered something like no muggleborn witch can teach me anything useful and he pulled his wand.'

For a moment Harry felt worried, but he realised that if something had happened the two girls would not be so cheerful. Daphne took over again: 'He shot a dark yellow spell at your mother while she had her back turned to the class. She did not even turn around, but put her wand over her should and blocked the spell. Then just a second later she had Malfoy bound, gagged and stuck to the ceiling while she calmly explained to him that Slytherin just lost twenty points and that he had a week of detentions with Filch.'

There was a roar of laughter from the Gryffindor table. Harry looked at the staff table and saw that his mother was in a heated debate with Snape. Most likely about the house points his beloved house just lost. Strangely enough it seemed like Snape was actually interested in Lily's arguments, normally he would just sneer and frown at everyone who said something against Slytherin.

Tracey started to talk again: 'We thought you would like to hear the story, and apparently we were right.'

'Yeah, yeah, you are brilliant.' Hermione dryly said, although everybody could hear the smile in her voice. The two smart girls had started a friendly rivalry during the last year, and Tracey simply reacted with a polite curtsey in Hermione's direction.

'Anyway, we should move on. We have herbology after the break and I still have to pick up my book.' Daphne said, 'Oh, by the way… the DA meetings are still on Thursday evenings in the great hall?'

Harry nodded and with two quick goodbyes the two girls walked away again. Harry watched them go until Hermione reached over the table and knocked on his head: 'See something you like Potter?'

Harry felt his head heating up while several of his year mates, especially Ron, laughed at him. He replied: 'No, I was just worrying what would happen if seventh year Slytherins tried the same as Malfoy. I think he is not the only one in that house who feels that way about muggleborns.'

Hermione's smile immediately disappeared: 'Oh… Well, I think they would found themselves stuck to the ceiling as well. Although, knowing Lily she would probably do something else this time. She does not really like repetition. Anyway, you should not worry too much about your mother, she can handle herself.'

With a last glance to the staff table where Snape seemed to be backing down Harry nodded: 'I guess you are right.'

— One day later —

They had their first defence class today, and found the classroom decorated with all kind of pictures of wizards and witches in combat situations. As soon as Lily walked into the room she smiled to the Gryffindors and said: 'I believe we already know each other from camp. Nice to see you all again.'

There were a few confused looks at the informal greeting, but Lily simply continued: 'This year we will focus on two things. Battlefield awareness and preparing the battlefield.' She frowned when she saw Ron raising a hand: 'Yes, Ron?'

'We heard what you did to Malfoy. Is it true that you had your back turned to him at the time?' Ron asked.

Lily looked thoughtful for a moment before she replied: 'I am not supposed to discuss disciplinary actions outside the class in which they happened. But since it is relevant to both of the subjects I am going to do it anyway. Yes, I was writing on the blackboard at the time that Mr. Malfoy tried to attack me.'

'But then how did you know?' Ron wanted to know.

Lily smiled: 'A good question. The answer is actually rather simple, does anyone have an idea?'

There was a long silence until Hermione tried: 'Maybe a magic detection spell? I guess you could have activated some kind of charm and let it alarm you when someone used magic.'

'Partly true.' Lily nodded, 'Since a charm like that is actually running right now. We will cover those kind of charms as well sometime around Christmas I think. But while those spells are useful they work too slow to be of help in an actual duel. For example, I only received the warning about Malfoy's spell after I created my own shield. Anyone else wants to try?'

When nobody replied she smiled and said: 'Lavender? Could you come over here?'

Lavender looked surprised but stood up and walked to the front of the room. She seemed rather uncomfortable while looking at her classmates. Lily just smiled at her and said: 'Look at the blackboard please.'

Lavender turned around and gasped in surprise. Then her hand went to her head and she combed through her hair before she said: 'It is a mirror! How did you do that?'

'Well, it is still a blackboard, but when you stand within two feet of it you can use the central part as a mirror yeah. It is a very complicated charm.' Lily replied, 'I am not sure if we will be able to work on it this year, most of the time it is hardly useful because it takes a while to perform. Still, if you know in beforehand where and when you will have to turn your back at people…'

'So this is what you mean with battlefield preparation?' Harry asked.

Lily smiled at her son: 'Yes, definitely. If you have the time you should always think about what you can do to give yourself a few extra advantages. Of course, quite often you will not know from before where you will be fighting, but even then you can still improvise.' Then she turned to Lavender who was still busy with her hair: 'Lavender, you can go sit down again.'

Lavender blushed prettily: 'Oh, yeah, of course.'

As soon as the girl sat down Lily said: 'So, we have talked a bit about preparing the battlefield. Which means creating advantages for yourself or disadvantages for the enemy before you actually start the fight. With battlefield awareness I mean that you should always be aware of what is going on around you during a fight. Magical fights often turn out into a large number of duels that happen next to each other. It is very easy to focus all your attention on your direct opponent. Obviously, that is very important, but it is much better to keep an eye on what is happening around you as well. Both to avoid spell fire from others that is accidentally or intentionally send your way, and to see if you can help your allies. Often, an easy spell like a tripping jinx from an unexpected corner can take out a good fighter.'

She waited while everyone was writing down notes before she said: 'For this first class, I would like you to think about all the spells you learned last year and how they can be used for those two purposes. Think about it for ten minutes, then we will discuss it with the class. Oh, and feel free to discuss it among yourselves before that time as well.'

The lesson flew by after that. All the class was debating how some spells could be used for battlefield preparation. Most of them seemed to still clearly remember the DA meeting in which they had worked with the spongify spell, but Lily agreed that the spell had potential but was too short lived to actually use. Hermione mentioned a few spells that none of them knew, like glisseo. Which could apparently be used to change a stairway into a chute. Lily argued that it would work better to use a spell like that when your opponent was actually on the stairway instead of in advance though. And several other spells were debated and analyzed.

Just before the class ended Neville argued that they had only talked about spells which could be used to prepare the battlefield, and he asked if they did not know any spells which could help with awareness. Nobody really knew an answer to that and Lily just smiled and said that meant she had a few tricks to teach them during the year.

— Two days later —

In the second year boys dormitory five kids were getting ready for the night. They had just finished their first week of classes and most of them were exhausted. Suddenly one of the boys, Neville, walked to Harry and softly said: 'Harry? I think we should check the map. Not because I think something is wrong, but we promised our parents to check it every now and then.'

Harry guiltily nodded and pulled the map out of his trunk. With all the excitement of being back at Hogwarts he had almost forgotten about the map. He put the map on his bed and softly whispered the activation code. He did not really mind if his year mates noticed the map, but he wanted to keep the code a secret for now.

Together with Neville he started with the grounds, and saw that Hagrid and Fang were patrolling. Inside the castle only Filch and Mrs. Norris seemed to be moving around the hallways. All teachers were in their office's, and the students in their common rooms or dormitories. Eventually they reached the seventh floor and the Gryffindor common room. They noticed that a huge number of students was still gathered there. It seemed only the first and second year students had already left.

Out of curiosity Harry's eyes wandered to his own dormitory on the map. He thought it would be funny to see himself. And sure enough he saw his own and Neville's dot close together. A bit to the left he saw Dean Thomas and to his left Ron Weasley and Peter Pettigrew.

His brain suddenly jammed stuck and he could only point at it in shock. Neville frowned at him and followed his finger. Then he gasped and said: 'Wasn't he-'

'Yes!' Harry forcefully replied while pulling his wand and pointing it towards Ron. 'Ron? Can I see your rat for a moment?'

Ron was clearly surprised by Harry's cold tone and he grabbed his rat into his hand: 'Why? What's wrong Harry?'

'I think he is an animagus.' Harry simply replied.

With a perplexed look Ron started to laugh: 'That is ridiculous. Scabbers has been in the family for yea — Ouch!' The rat had bitten in Rons finger and the red head had dropped him in shock. Now the rat ran out of the dormitory at full speed, avoiding the book that Neville threw at it and Harry's expelliarmus spell. He was not really sure why he had used that spell anyway. Ron, Neville and Harry all tried to ran through the door at the same time, which resulted in a blocked doorway and a few shouts before Harry was the first one through.

He ran towards the common room and saw the rat entering it just ahead of it. He shouted: 'Somebody grab that rat!'

_A/N: This seemed like a nice place to stop the chapter. I mean, otherwise I would have to keep on writing about Peters capture or escape and all the things that happened after that and the chapter would be way too long. We wouldn't want that._

_So, to reviews. An amazing number this time, although about half of them from one person;)_

_Teufel1987: I think deep pockets are more important in influencing Fudge than reputation or influence;) But yes, they should spend more time and energy on the political side. And their inactivity might very well become a problem sooner or later. Wouldn't that be a shame? *Whistles innocently*_

_Sanbeegoldiewhitey: Well, Harry made up for it a bit during the rest of the vacation. But I think the two main things that were achieved by the camp were strengthening the friendship bonds of the DA members and give the purebloods a taste of the muggle world. It seemed a bit too early for a military like boot camp. Maybe later;)_

_Mwinter1, Michaeldavidgeng, TsukiyoTenshi, Happylady, Penny is wise, Rori Potter,Blue Luver5000, PrincessKatAngela, Nagasmythreality, Beloved Daughter: Thanks!_

_Fifespice: Thanks for all the reviews, I hope you do not mind I only reply once, but otherwise it would become a bit repetitive;) _

_Magical fan18: To be honest I did not really have a specific movie in mind. Most likely something set in medieval or ancient times or so, that way the muggleborns would not have to explain half of the movie to the purebloods. _

_MAFITA: Yeah, their mother will most likely be worried though when they return home with good marks this summer. I wanted some of their prank items to become available a bit earlier, and this seemed a good way to achieve that. Together with Dumbledore's lessons about magical detection spells of course._

_Expecto Padfoot: Well, it seems Snape behaves a bit different around Lily so far. Although hitting on might be a bit too much. If he did, I would probably have to write another James-chapter that sees him destroy the potions classroom… Hmm, could be fun… _

_I am still not really sure about the pairing, still a few years before Harry really starts to notice girls after all. And it is possible that his first girlfriend(s) only lasts for a short while I guess. They are teenagers after all. But maybe he finds love on his first try;)_


	31. Rats and spells

**Rats and spells**

'Somebody grab that rat!' Harry shouted into the still quite busy common room.

Fred Weasley was the first to react, and with a spectacular dive he flew over the rat and toppled a table that three fifth years were using for their homework. They were still shouting protests when George followed his brothers example and crashed into a comfy chair that two seventh years were using for a bit of 'couple time'.

Harry wondered if the twins had done it on purpose, for they could not have created more chaos if they had tried. Meanwhile Ron and he bumped into several other students while trying to get to the running rat. Suddenly a voice shouted over the commotion: 'Accio Scabbers!'

Peter flew backwards and passed just next to Harry's grabbing hands. He probably would have gotten him if Ron had not bumped into him. His eyes followed the rat's flight and saw how Percy Weasley caught it in one hand. Soon enough the prefect had to put his wand on the table because even with two hands it was difficult to control the excited rat. He asked: 'What on earth have you done to poor Scabbers?'

Ron started to answer but Harry quickly gave him a kick on his ankle. The redhead looked at him in surprise, but before Harry could say anything Neville appeared on his other side and said: 'I asked your mother to come.'

'Thanks Nev.' Harry smiled.

'Professor Potter? Why would you ask her to come?' Percy wanted to know, while still struggling with the rat. Then he turned to one of his fellow sixth years and said: 'William? Can you do something about it? I am afraid I will hurt it if it keeps squirming like this.'

A stocky brown haired guy walked towards Percy and pointed his wand at the rat. He hesitated: 'A stunner might very well kill such a small creature I think…'

Percy nodded: 'Try incarcerous.'

The other boy nodded and with a whispered spell magical ropes appeared all around Peter the rat. Percy carefully put him on the table and started to turn back to Harry again when a loud stern voice from the portrait hole asked: 'What is going on here? I heard two crashes and a lot of shouting?'

Percy, and pretty much all of the common room beside Harry and Neville who kept their eyes and wands towards the rat, turned their eyes towards their head of house. Percy was the first to reply: 'I am not sure professor. But some of the second years just came running into the common room chasing Scabbers.'

'Who?' Another voice asked, and now Harry quickly turned his head around for a few seconds to see that his mother had walked in behind professor McGonagall. Who looked rather surprised by that.

'Ron's pet rat.' Percy replied.

Both professors looked confused at that. Then McGonagall slowly said: 'Mr. Weasley, and with that I mean the youngest one, why did you think it a good idea to chase your rat into the common room?'

'Ehm… well, I… That is to say, Harry…' Ron stammered.

'Mr. Potter? Can you help Mr. Weasley? And while you are at it, please do explain why you keep your wand pointed at that rat. It does not seem that dangerous to me.' McGonagall dryly continued.

Harry slowly turned around while trying to think of an excuse. He noticed that most of the girls had also returned to the common room, and that Susan and Hermione were also pointing their wands at the rat. He wondered if they had already worked it out or if they were just mimicking him and Neville. When he was finally looking at McGonagall he still had not thought about a good excuse, but he noticed that his mother's wand was also pointed towards the rat, and that she grimly nodded towards him. He hoped that meant she was okay with him telling everybody and so he simply said: 'We think Scabbers is an animagus.'

Percy was the first to break the stunned silence: 'That is preposterous. Scabbers was my pet rat for years before Ron took him, we would have noticed.'

McGonagall frowned: 'Scabbers was your old rat? I figured yours died when I received another letter for dispensation for a pet rat from your parents, after all, they usually do not live that long. Still, I can not imagine why anyone would disguise themselves as a rat for years.'

'But I can.' Lily said, her voice very cold. 'Maybe we should take this rat to the headmaster. I think Harry should be there as well.'

McGonagall turned to her colleague for a few seconds before she said: 'Very well. I believe both Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley should come- I meant Ron and Percy,' She interrupted herself when Fred and George stepped forward.

'Well, how are we supposed to know that?' George protested.

'Yeah, normally you send us to the headmaster's office to represent the Weasley clan.' Fred added.

'Well, not this time. But do not push your luck.' McGonagall dryly replied before she silently summoned the rat and carried it out of the common room. Harry, Lily, Ron and Percy quickly followed.

Soon enough they arrived at the gargoyle that guarded the headmaster's office. McGonagall made sure to whisper the password so none of them would hear it. Harry wondered if it was a sort of candy again, just like last year. The office still looked more or less the same at least, although Fawkes seemed a bit smaller this time. Or maybe Harry was a bit taller now, that made more sense.

Dumbledore welcomed them and his sparkling eyes moved from person to person. Harry felt something odd, like a very short itch on his inner eyes. He wondered what that was about, maybe the headmasters sparkling eyes just made his own eyes ache somehow. Eventually Dumbledore conjured some chairs and said: 'How nice of you all to visit me. Lemon drop anyone?' They all politely refused and the headmaster continued: 'I have to admit that I am curious about the bound rat.'

It was McGonagall who replied: 'Apparently Mr. Potter believes the rat to be an animagus. I figured it was an unlikely story, but Lily seems to believe him.'

Dumbledore studied Harry for a few seconds, but when he did not say anything he turned to Lily instead and raised a questioning eyebrow. Lily carefully thought about her reply before she simply said: 'James, Harry and I were betrayed by a rat animagus.'

The headmaster only blinked once, and then he nodded like something suddenly made sense before he replied: 'Why do you think it would be this rat?'

Meanwhile McGonagall muttered: 'Peter Pettigrew? An animagus? Not very likely.'

Lily just smiled at her colleague before she answered the headmaster: 'I have no idea, but I do not think we ever told Harry about Peters animagus form. So when he was telling us that the rat was an animagus I was tempted to believe him.'

'I still think it is a ridiculous idea.' Percy complained, but Dumbledore simply ignored him and turned to Harry again: 'Mr. Potter? Care to explain.'

'Ehm…' Once more Harry looked around for an excuse. And this time his mother did not give him a supporting nod. Eventually he tried: 'About two weeks ago my parents gave me an item that helped me discover Pettigrew.'

'An item that detects animagi? How interesting, can I see it?' Dumbledore asked.

'I believe I can help there.' Lily quickly came to Harry's aid. She pulled a piece of parchment out of her pocket and put it on the desk. With a simple wand tap she activated her own marauders map. There were some surprised gasps when the piece of parchment grew into the large map of Hogwarts. And eventually Dumbledore pointed towards his own office and said: 'Wonderful. And I can see how you discovered Peter.'

They all looked at the map of the office and clearly saw a dot with Peters name above it. Percy and Ron looked most shocked and eventually the elder Weasley said: 'It is true then? Maybe the map is mistaken?'

'There is an easy way to find out.' Dumbledore replied while pointing his wand at the rat. He paused at the alarmed looks that the two Weasleys sent him and assured them: 'It will not hurt Scabbers if he is a real rat.' Both redheads nodded and with a quick jab Dumbledore made the ropes around the rat disappear. Immediately the rat started to run again, but before it could move even one step a colourless bolt shot into its back and suddenly a small man crashed from the desk. Everybody jumped away from the man, but the three professors kept their wands on him.

Slowly the man stood up, he was only a head taller than Harry. Although it looked like he bent over a bit. His watery eyes gazed to the office's door for a few moments before they quickly shot from face to face. Eventually they settled on Harry's mother: 'Lily…'

Whatever else he wanted to say was interrupted by a loud slap when Lily's hand connected with his face. In a very cold tone she continued: 'You are lucky that James is not here, he would have killed you immediately.'

The small man turned his head a bit to show a balding spot on top of it. His eyes seemed rather wet by now and he snivelled: 'Lily, you have to understand. The dark lord… he is…'

'Spare me your excuses.' Lily stopped him, 'You endangered Harry, I will never forgive that.'

Pettigrew turned to Harry and whispered: 'So much like James.'

There was a red flash from the corner of the office before Dumbledore took control: 'I just asked Fawkes to deliver a note to the DMLE. They will come and collect you soon enough.' The man seemed to turn even smaller at that. And the headmaster continued: 'In the meanwhile, maybe you can explain to use how you became an animagus.'

However, the only noised Peter made were a few soft sniffs. Eventually Lily said: 'I can answer that question. As you know my husband and Sirius befriended a werewolf during their Hogwarts years. They taught themselves the animagus transformation to accompany their friend during the full moon. Sadly, they believed this piece of filth was a friend as well and they helped him to achieve his very fitting form as well.'

McGonagall looked shocked and Dumbledore mumbled: 'Impressive. Not least of all keeping it hidden from the staff.' Then he continued in a normal voice: 'I take it you do not want the DMLE to know this?'

Lily nodded and Percy, who had been silent since the rat turned into a man, stammered: 'But why not? Animagus forms should be registered at the ministry.'

'Because it helps us if not everybody knows about those forms.' Lily simply replied.

'It might be a good idea to keep the fact that a death eater took cover at your house hidden as well.' Dumbledore added, 'It would not help your father's career, nor your own.'

Percy looked thoughtful for a short while before he said: 'Yes, I can see that. Ron?'

Ron was still staring at the bald crying man in shock and only said: 'He slept in my bed!'

All the others looked at each other in wonder. Eventually Dumbledore said: 'Yes Ron, we know that. If it really troubles you maybe you should talk about it with madam Pomfrey.'

Ron's ear tips turned red before he turned to the headmaster and swallowed: 'No! I am okay! It is just… weird I guess.'

Dumbledore gently nodded before he focused on the rat again. Suddenly, all signs of the friendly grandfather disappeared and Dumbledore looked every bit the powerful wizard he was. Even his voice sounded different when he thundered: 'Peter! There is one thing I want to know before the aurors take you. What happened to Voldemorts wand?'

Pettigrew shook under the impact of those words, and his answer sounded strained, like he did not really want to give it. 'It flew away when the house exploded. I caught it and ran, but the next day Bellatrix and some of her friends arrived. One of them stole the wand from me.'

'Who?' Dumbledore thundered again.

'I do not know.' Peter squeaked, 'Please, make it stop!'

Suddenly Dumbledore's features turned back to normal again and Peter stopped whimpering. Or at least, he turned back to his earlier level of whimpering. It was Lily who spoke next: 'Maybe we can stick to the story that Peter killed Rons pet and tried to take his place tonight? That should keep Arthur out of this.'

Dumbledore nodded: 'Does everyone agree with this?'

McGonagall and Harry immediately agreed. The two Weasleys took a few seconds longer but eventually were quite enthusiastic in their agreements. Although most likely for different reasons. 'Great.' Dumbledore replied, 'Why don't you three head back to your common room? We will talk with the aurors.'

The three students nodded but when Harry moved towards the stairs Lily whispered to him: 'Meet me at my office in two hours. Bring the others.'

Harry and the two Weasleys walked back towards the common room in silence. The two redheads were still rather upset by the whole idea that their pet rat was actually an animagus in hiding, and Harry's mind was running into various directions all at once. Inside the common room Harry was immediately attacked by his three friends. He did not answer their questions, but tried to pay attention to what Ron and Percy were saying. As soon as he was satisfied that they were sticking to the story he pulled the other three outside of the common room and led them to his mothers office.

He had not been there yet, and was somewhat surprised by the lack of furniture and paintings in the office. It seemed rather cold and impersonal, not really the way that his mother usually decorated rooms. But then she would only stay here for one year, maybe she had decided not too waste any energy on decorating.

Since there were not enough chairs they all remained standing while Harry quickly described what had happened in the headmaster's office. As soon as he finished Susan was the first to reply: 'So Pettigrew is finally getting what he deserves. According to my aunt Azkaban is a terrible place.'

'I guess so.' Harry shrugged. It was a good thing that he knew exactly what Pettigrew had done all those years ago, otherwise he might have felt sorry for the pathetic man he met in Dumbledore's office. Now he agreed with his mother, anyone who endangered his family should not get any sympathy.

Maybe Hermione noticed that he was still a bit confused about it all, for she changed the subject: 'We figured we should work on those accio and incarcerous spells at the DA soon.'

Harry nodded: 'Yes, and that stunning spell they mentioned sounds useful as well.' He shook his head and grimaced: 'When Pettigrew ran away from us the only spell I fired was an expelliarmus. I have no idea why, I just did not really know a spell to stop him.'

'Maybe wingardium leviosa would have worked.' Hermione suggested, 'But you are right, we focused too much on the spells used during classes last year. We should try and learn a few generally useful spells.'

Once again Harry nodded and the four of them talked about how they would be able to master those spells until Lily arrived. She immediately conjured four extra chairs and sat down behind the desk while the four kids also took a seat. Grimly she said: 'Peter is on his way to Azkaban. I should tell the others, but I figured it would be fair to talk to the four of you first. Are you alright Harry?'

'Sure.' Harry said, 'It is a bit weird that we had a disguised death eater in our dormitory for the last year, but he never hurt us. So no harm done.'

'I hope so at least.' Lily agreed, 'It is possible that he was a spy. But Amelia agreed she would question him under veritaserum before the official trial. She is going to ask him if he had any contacts with other death eaters during the last few years.'

'Auntie is here?' Susan wondered.

'Not anymore. She accompanied the aurors and Peter to Azkaban.' Lily replied, 'She asked me to say hi to you though.'

Susan nodded and Neville asked: 'So, what is going to happen now?'

With a shrug Lily answered: 'For you? Not much. It is possible that an auror will visit and ask the two of you how you found out about Peter. If that happens, do not answer any questions until I am with you.' She shook her head before she continued: 'I still can not believe that I missed him. I watched my map every night, but I figured I should respect your privacy and not look into your room. I am so relieved that nothing bad happened, I would have never forgiven myself.'

Harry walked up to his mother and gave her a quick hug before he said: 'I guess we should have acted a bit smarter as well. Maybe we should have asked you to come instead of shouting to Ron that we thought his rat was an animagus.'

'Yeah.' Neville nodded, 'Or at least we could have closed the door first.'

Hermione interrupted: 'Oh, we were just discussing that we should work on a few new spells in the DA. The incarcerous and accio charms. And a stunning spell that we do not know the name of.'

Lily nodded: 'Stupefy. And yes, those three spells are very useful, but usually only taught in fourth year. They might be a bit difficult, but I'll help you master them.'

Hermione beamed at that and Neville took over again: 'So, what is going to happen with Pettigrew?'

Lily shrugged: 'He is probably at Azkaban by now. I guess there will be a trial in a few days. Since he is not really rich or anything and a lot of people know that he was our secret keeper I can not see how he will avoid a very long stay at Azkaban. The rest of his life would work for me.'

'Are you saying that the DMLE is corrupt?' An affronted Susan replied.

With a sad head shake Lily replied: 'There are corrupt people in every department. And while your aunt is one of the most trustworthy people I know I am afraid that Fudge will try and take control. It is a long time since the last death eater was captured, and the last few were rather unknown. So Fudge will try to get some free publicity, which could result in an even worse sentence for Peter.'

It seemed like she did not really mind that. And Harry could only agree, the man had chosen his own road after all. It was a bit depressing to hear his mother talk about the corruption in the ministry so easily, he wondered why she was not fighting against it. Although he guessed that the whole Voldemort thing took enough of her time.

They kept talking for a short while until Lily said: 'I should inform the others. Why don't you four go and get some sleep? After all, the quidditch try outs are in two days and James would get very upset with me if he thought I kept you awake Harry.'

Harry just grinned, he had all but forgotten about the try outs. But his mother had a good point and he quickly stood up. The others followed his example and soon enough they had to dodge questions in the Gryffindor common room again. They only said a few general things about how an animagus had taken the place of Rons pet rat before they all ran for their beds.

_A/N: And there goes Peter. Not my best chapter ever, but it had to happen. Not only because of Peter but also to make Harry realize that his spell arsenal was a bit lacking._

_Oh, and since I often get grammar advice in my reviews, a question: I used the word colourless, but my writing tool Scrivener told me it should be colorless. So I edited it, but when I pasted the text to Word so I could upload it Word made me change it back to colourless… So, now I am confused :D_

_Anyway, on to reviews:_

_Naruhinafan86: Yeah, I know. The problem is that I am trying to write a story that runs from Harry's birth to at least the final battle with Voldemort and maybe a bit after that. So if I use the same level of detail as the books I will hit the one million word mark eventually. Not sure if anyone would like that;) That's why I try to stick to the important and/ or unique events. _

_Guest #1: Well, expelliarmus worked out rather nice against Voldy, didn't it? ;) But yup, in my story twelve year old Harry would not have a chance against Voldemort. His training might keep him alive for a few minutes by dodging his spells, but that is about it._

_Ruby101: Then all you would need was a wand to stop them… maybe a water gun would work? ;)_

_SlytherinLover143: Thanks! Not sure what Malfoy has to do with it though;) But I am sure he will show up soon enough again._

_Msupernatural: Thanks, I keep trying to update at least once a week although I had to give up my three day update rhythm that I started the story with. And yes, I do plan to cover at least all the Hogwarts years in this story, although it is possible that one or two years will get very little screen time. _

_Cflat: Superhero Percy was the one to catch him. I wonder if he will put it on his CV while job hunting ;)_

_Happylady: Well, he will think twice before trying that again I guess._

_Sanbeegoldiewhitey: That, and I think wingardium leviosa is not really a spell that you normally use in a fight. So if you only have a split second to react you may stick with more conventional combat spells. Nice suggestion though, you inspired Hermione;) _

_Michaeldavidgeng, Rori Potter, Jbfritz: Thanks!'_

_Guest #2 (MAFITA again?;)): A marauders map would be a nice thing to have yeah. And I figured it would be odd if Peter was not discovered now that there were so many maps around. In fact, I wonder why Fred and George never noticed him, although I guess they focused on avoiding Filch._

_MaeSilverpaws1: Yeah, I believe Dumbledore really enjoyed actually teaching again. And Peter has indeed been found out a year early, but third year will most likely be the year that changes most from canon without Sirius escaping Azkaban and all that. The main chance in Voldie's time line so far is of course that he already returned to his body, although he had to sacrifice a horcrux to get that far._

_Oh, and welcome to the 'common folk' I guess;) At least you did not have to wait that long the first time._

_RRW: I had to google BAMF. Not that common an expression in Holland I guess, or just my ignorance. Anyway, I actually found a site that says this: "1. B.A.M.F.: neville longbottom" and then shows some quotes from the Deathly Hallows :P_

_And yup, Lily definitely is a BAMF._


	32. Law and politics

**Law and politics**

James, Sirius and Remus were seated around a large mahogany table. Opposite them sat a grey-haired man in immaculate dress robes. His name was Devon Stephenson and he was one of the leading partners of Stephenson and Jones lawyers. He had also been the lawyer of both the Potter and Black families for over thirty years. Although James had only seen him a couple times during those years. Sirius had met the man a bit more often around his own wedding, he had never really explained why, but James guessed it had something to do with binding two pureblood families together. At the time Sirius was the heir to the house of Black, which he had inherited a few years later when his mother passed away. Amelia had been the regent for the house of Bones and Susan, only a toddler at the time, was the heir for that house. He could imagine how a lawyer would react to that.

Today the three marauders were visiting for a much easier case. The trial of the former fourth marauder which would be held in a week. Stephenson had quickly browsed through some papers and now addressed the three of them: 'Well, this all seems clear enough. What is it that you need my assistance for? Do you want to file some extra charges against Pettigrew?'

The three marauders exchanged a few looks. They had discussed this the day before and had not reached a conclusion. Sirius wanted to punish the rat, and had argued that if they would add a few more charges they could at least get some more questions answered under veritaserum. He seemed to be sure that Peter had done more dark things during his death eater days. And although he did not know any specifics he figured that vague questions would be good enough to make the rat admit some other misdeeds.

Remus had agreed with Sirius reasoning, but had argued that it was against the law to use veritaserum unless you had a reasonable idea about what the suspect had done. Vague questions were officially not allowed, and although Sirius replied that a few well placed donations could most likely solve that problem Remus seemed a bit upset by that idea. When he told Sirius that it might be a bit foolish for the husband of the head of the DMLE to do those donations Sirius had quickly stopped talking about it as well. Amelia was usually a gentle and nice woman, but she would most likely hurt him a lot if he risked her career like that.

James had been rather quite during the whole discussion. Part of him agreed with Sirius. He wanted to see Peter suffer. But another part of him remembered his former friend from Hogwarts. And that part had an irritating little voice that told him he had known in advance that Peter would betray them. But instead of choosing another secret keeper he had decided to use Peter and anticipate on Voldemorts visit with those muggle contraptions that Lily had found somewhere. Sometimes he still saw the bright orange light that had destroyed half the cottage, Voldemorts body and almost his own as well. It seemed a bit unfair to him to add even more charges while Peter was already on trial for a situation that his former friends had created. Of course, he felt no sympathy for the man, but he was not sure if it would feel alright to add even more charges. It was a shame that Lily wanted nothing to do with the trial, he would have liked to discuss this with her. But she had argued that she was too busy at Hogwarts and that the three of them could handle it.

He noted that both Sirius and Remus were looking at him while Stephenson was still waiting for a reaction. He shrugged and asked: 'What do you think Peter's punishment will be for the current charges?'

The lawyer thought about his reply for almost a minute: 'It is difficult to say because of all the unique circumstances. I would say two to three years for betraying the faith you put in him.' James tried not to wince and the man continued: 'And some twenty-five to thirty years because he endangered your family. If one of you had died it would have been a life sentence for sure.'

'What do you mean with unique circumstances?' James wondered.

'Well, there are two things that might influence the outcome a lot.' Stephenson replied slowly. 'First of all, Pettigrews betrayal resulted in the end of Voldemort. I am sure that this was not his intention, but there is a possibility that some wizengamot members argue to reduce the sentence by a few years because of that.' He raised a hand when he saw that all three marauders wanted to protest and continued: 'It is a very small chance, especially because I do not think any family would want to risk their name to stand up for Pettigrew. Beside that, your families are part of a rather influential voting block.'

James nodded, some fifteen years ago they had asked Augusta Longbottom to control their votes in the Wizengamot after Frank told them he had asked his mother to take the Longbottom seat so he and Alice could focus on their new training regime and of course on Neville. James and Sirius had quickly followed their friend's example, but instead of searching for their own proxy they had decided to ask Augusta to manage their seats as well. Sirius had of course first asked his wife, but she had refused because she was often involved in a different role during the wizengamot meetings. When that happened the Abbot family managed her, or actually Susans, seat, but she thought it would be a bit odd to ask them to proxy a proxy vote.

For now it worked fine. Augusta briefed them every now and then about the votes she had made and once or twice she had actually asked their opinion before voting. And it made sure that James and Sirius did not have to waste time on politics. Still, it also meant that they did not know too much about politics. Which was shown again when Remus asked: 'What about the second circumstance?'

Stephenson shrugged: 'This is the first death eater trial in about ten years. That means it is partly political as well. It is more then likely that Fudge will try to get involved somehow. And if I had to make a guess I would say that he is going to ask for a very heavy punishment. Possibly even the dementors kiss.'

James shot upright at that, and judging by the soft curses he heard from Sirius and Remus surprised gasp he was not the only one. After a few seconds it was Remus who spoke again: 'Didn't you just say that Peter would get some thirty years at worst?'

With a grimace Stephenson nodded: 'Well, that is if you simply use the letter of the law. The point is that a trial like this will be held in front of the full wizengamot, which as you know is simply a gathering of pureblood family heads. Or their proxies at least. If Fudge, or anyone else for that matter, tries to score some publicity by asking for a more severe punishment it is possible that a majority will agree. If only because they do not want their own family to be seen as defending a death eater.'

'That seems a bit unfair.' Remus softly replied with a far away look. James figured he was most likely wondering how many families would stand up to defend a werewolf in a similar situation. Most of the time he was rather okay with his furry little problem by now, but every now and then he would worry about something useless like this. Stephenson just raised both his hands and gave a 'what can you do about it' look in reply to Remus remark. Then he said: 'Are you planning to use your own seats during the case?'

James shook his head: 'No, both Sirius and I received a letter that we had to attend the trial. Apparently they want to ask us some questions about what happened.'

'So basically Peter can get kissed, get twenty years in prison, or anything between that?' Sirius wondered.

'That is my estimation at least. Of course, I am working under the impression that Pettigrew will confess that he betrayed the Potter family to Voldemort. If he does not it will be a very different story.'

Sirius started to argue, but James put a hand on his arm to stop him. They all knew for sure that Peter had willingly betrayed them to Voldemort, and there was no way that the rat would lie about it under the influence of veritaserum. There was a short silence while all three marauders considered what the lawyer had said. Eventually the silence was disrupted by a soft knock on the door. Stephensons assistant put his head around the door and said: 'Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are here. They claim that Mr. Potter invited them?'

James nodded: 'Yes, we had another question. One that involves the Weasleys as well.'

Stephenson looked surprised but quickly agreed and soon Arthur and Molly walked into the room. The lawyer quickly introduced himself to them while his assistant brought in a few more chairs. As soon as the Weasleys were seated Arthur turned to James: 'I am still not sure why you wanted to meet us here?'

James smiled at the man. He was clearly not comfortable in the expensive looking office, and James hoped a friendly smile would help him settle down a bit. 'Well, I know that officially seen I am not supposed to ask you this. But did you and Molly also receive letters from the ministry to attend Peters trial next week?'

Arthur shook his head while a clearly indignant Molly said: 'No, they asked for Percy and Ron instead. Arthur is trying to make them see that he can answer all their questions just fine, but it does not really work so far.'

Stephenson frowned: 'Mr. Weasley? Who did you talk to?'

Arthur hesitated: 'I went to the administrative unit of the DMLE and talked with a bald man… Hensley or something like that?'

With a sad shake of his head Stephenson replied: 'Ah, that man is… well, useless is a friendly word I guess. If you'd send a copy of the letters to my assistant I can make sure that you can take your sons places.'

Molly beamed but Arthur suddenly blushed: 'That is very friendly, but I am afraid we can not afford your prices.'

James waved his hand and said: 'I am sure Mr. Stephenson will do it as part of the case that he is working on. After all, we were going to ask you to work on a shared defence.'

'Defence?' Arthur frowned, 'But we did nothing wrong?'

Stephenson also looked surprised. So James said: 'What did your sons tell you?'

'That Pettigrew killed Scabbers and tried to take his place.' Arthur slowly replied, 'In his letter Percy seemed to hint that there was a bit more to the story, but I think he did not want to write it down.'

Next to James Sirius slapped himself on his forehead. James felt like copying his action. Of course they should have told the Weasleys about what actually happened. Well, better late than never: 'Actually, that is the cover story that Lily, Dumbledore and the kids quickly made up. Scabbers was actually Peter Pettigrew, he has been hiding in your house for years.'

Both Molly and Arthur turned very white at that. Eventually Molly said: 'But that is impossible. We should have noticed somehow.'

Remus replied: 'Actually, Peter always was a good liar. It would not be too hard for him to pretend to be an actual rat. And he had motivation enough.' When he saw the questioning looks he explained: 'He was not only afraid that we would find him, but most likely he was also hiding from his former death eater friends. After all, his actions resulted in their masters disappearance.'

There were some understanding nods and Arthur commented: 'I can see how it would look bad on us if people learned that a death eater had been hiding at the Burrow for years. Even if we knew nothing about it.'

'Quite so. Amelia always says how important reputation is inside the ministry.' Sirius agreed, 'That is part of the reason why we wanted to ask you to work on a shared defence with us. And beside that we felt it would be better if we compared our views in advance. Trials can turn rather ugly if the witnesses contradict each other.'

'Is that allowed?' Molly wondered, 'I mean, it seems to offer a lot of room to make up stories.'

'There are charms around the witness stand that make it almost impossible to lie without being noticed.' Stephenson explained, 'So it is very difficult to actually deform the truth. The main problem is that the truth as perceived by a witness is not always the real truth. And if different witnesses perceive different truths it can turn into rather unpleasant questioning.'

Molly was clearly confused by it all so Remus explained: 'Imagine that James thought that Scabbers was a cat. If the judges asked him about it he would 'truthfully' tell them that Peter was hiding as a cat. Then Arthur shows up and tells everyone that Peter was a rat. It would make people suspicious.

'Ah I see.' Molly nodded, 'But then why did you tell us about what actually happened? Arthur could simply have told them the lie without being noticed if you had not just told him.'

'Oh.' James said, which probably sounded about as dumb as he felt himself right now.

Stephenson grinned and said: 'Well said Mrs. Weasley. However, if Mr. Weasley simply tells what he read in your sons letters and explains that he had never seen any signs that Scabbers was actually an animagus he should be fine.'

'We wanted to ask you to ask the questions to all of us.' James quickly said, trying to save his earlier mistake. 'After all, we only want to answer the questions that are directly related to the charges. We do not want to share any information about what else might have happened around that time.'

The lawyer nodded: 'Of course I can do that. It is a rather common practice in this kind of trials actually. After all, there are a lot of emotions involved and as long as the judge agree with the list of questions that I present to them before the trials start I can do the questioning. Beside that, I can object to any extra questions that the judges might want to ask if you want that. But while I can understand why Mr. Weasley should not be questioned to extensively I do wonder why you and Sirius do want to stick to basic information?'

'Partly because it is, as you said, an emotional trial. Peter used to be our friend.' James replied, 'Beside that, nobody knows how we stopped Voldemort, and we want to keep it that way. There are all kind of possible questions around this case which might link toward what we did.'

'I see.' Stephenson slowly replied before he looked around and said: 'I think it would be best if we met again in two days and discuss our options. That would give me time to prepare a list of questions for all three witnesses. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley? Do you think you can send those letters to my assistant later today? I will make sure to have that matter taken care of tomorrow then.'

Both Weasleys nodded in agreement. And seconds later the five of them left the lawyer alone. Once outside Arthur turned to James and asked: 'Are you sure you are okay with this James? I mean, I appreciate it of course, but I feel it is a bit unfair that we benefit from Mr. Stephenson while you pay for it.'

James shrugged: 'This shared defence helps us as well.'

'Beside that, we do not pay him for this.' Sirius grinned and when Arthur and Molly looked at him in wonder he explained: 'Both James' and my own family have worked with this office for a long time. And we both simply pay him a rather nice sum each year, in return he helps us for free when we need him. And since, as James said, a shared defence helps us as well he can hardly ask extra money for including you.'

'Ah, I see.' Arthur nodded, 'Still, thanks a lot. If only because it keeps our sons out of the courtroom.'

'Yeah, they wanted to see Harry and Neville as well.' James nodded, 'But Stephenson already blocked that and made sure that I could go instead of Harry. Although I was already invited anyway. And the lawyer of the Longbottom family did the same.'

'I have to admit it is nice to have a few people on our side who know how to handle this.' Molly smiled, 'The two of us had no idea where to start.'

James and the others just smiled in return. Both Sirius and he sometimes complained about all the responsibilities and functions that their positions gave them. But at times like this it was rather nice to be the head of an ancient and maybe even more important a rich family.

— One week later —

With a deep sigh James left the courtroom, quickly followed by Sirius and Remus. It had been a difficult trial. Although trial was a bit too strong a word for the farce that they had just witnessed. It had started alright. Pettigrew had answered the judges questions about what happened fair enough, not that there was any chance that he would not with veritaserum involved. And after that Stephenson had asked a few questions to James, Sirius and Arthur. Since they had already prepared for those questions it had been easy enough to answer them without giving anything away. The head judge had some extra questions, but Stephenson quickly objected that they had nothing to do with the case involved and eventually the woman gave up on them.

But after the questioning the trial went downhill quickly. Fudge had stepped forward and had held a long speech about the successful capture of Pettigrew by the ministry. James wondered what part the ministry played when a group of students captured Wormtail. But then Fudge had made sure not to stand anywhere near the lie-detecting witness position. After Fudge's self congratulating ended he had asked for a life sentence for Peter. As Stephenson had predicted, no one in the wizengamot felt like arguing against it, and Peter was quickly sentenced to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban.

James could not say that the rat did not deserve it. But he still felt a bit sad that his former friend had fallen so low. Judging by the expressions on Sirius' and Remus' faces they had the same mixed feelings. Stephenson seemed a bit more cheerful when he joined them and said: 'Well, I'd say that went quite alright.'

Sirius nodded and said: 'Yeah, none of us had to say anything we did not want to say. And a life sentence sounds about right for Peter.'

'Still, it does not sit right with me that politics can influence a sentence like this.' Remus replied, before he quickly added: 'Not that I think he does not deserve it… It is just…'

'Sadly, it is the way the ministry functions. You'll see the same kind of things happening on every level.' A new voice said, and they all turned around to it and saw that Dumbledore, who had attended the trial at chief warlock, had spoken. Behind him Arthur and Molly Weasley joined with the group as well. Arthur turned to Stephenson and said: 'Thanks again for your help Mr. Stephenson, I am not sure we would have managed as well on our own.'

'It was my pleasure.' Stephenson bowed, 'I hope you do not mind, but I should head back to the office now.'

'Of course not.' James replied, and as soon as the man left he pulled a watch out of his pocket and said: 'We still have about an hour before we meet Lily and the kids at the three broomsticks.'

The headmaster replied: 'Yes of course. Are you sure you do not want to meet them inside Hogwarts? It is safer after all.'

James shook his head: 'Lily seemed to think it would be unfair if a group of parents showed up at Hogwarts. She figured that other kids would like their parents to visit as well. So instead of that we will wait for them at the gates and walk to the inn together.'

With a resigned shrug Dumbledore replied: 'Well, if that is the way you want it. On a side note, do you know that most students are very enthusiastic about Lily's classes? With a few notable exceptions.'

James smiled proudly: 'I could have told you that before term started. Lily is great. I guess the exceptions are centred around the Malfoy kid? Lily told me what he tried to do.'

Dumbledore gravely nodded: 'Quite so. I do hope that young boy will someday realize what he is doing and chooses a better way.'

James and the others did not reply to that. They were far less convinced about the idea that everybody could turn to the light if just given the opportunity. Instead, James changed the subject again: 'Lily actually told me that she really enjoyed her first few weeks, she seemed almost sad that it would only last for a year.'

'Well, she would be welcome to stay for as long as she wants.' Dumbledore cheerfully replied, but James shook his head: 'No, she wants to stay for only one year. She still has her own projects waiting for her at Lionfire Hall, and beside that she thinks she can avoid the curse this way.'

Remus noted the disappointed look on the headmasters face and said: 'If you'll have me I will take the post next year.'

Dumbledore smiled at Remus and said: 'Of course I would hire you. I think you would make a wonderful teacher, although I guess you will also only stay for one year?'

Remus nodded but Sirius immediately said: 'I can cover the year after that. It will be nice to be at Hogwarts again for a while.'

'And I'll do the year after Sirius.' James grinned, 'After that, we can try to get Frank or Alice to do it. Or maybe Lily or Remus wants to repeat a year again.' He would like to see Frank, Lily or Remus cover Harry's seventh year. The three of them were the most advanced spell casters in their group, and would be able to show a lot of interesting spells to their NEWT classes. James, Sirius and Alice focused more on direct fighting spells instead of fancy spell work. And although it was just as effective they could easily teach that in fourth or fifth year.

Dumbledore smiled like a kid that just saw a pile of birthday presents and said: 'That means I do not have to look for a new DADA teacher for the next few years. You have no idea how much easier you just made my job.'

— One hour later —

The group settled down in one of the siderooms of the three broomsticks. James, Sirius, Remus, Arthur and Molly had met up with Lily, Harry, Hermione, Susan, Neville, Percy and Ron at the outer gates of Hogwarts a few minutes ago. After madam Rosmerta provided them with butterbeers and a simple dinner Remus took the initiative to tell the Hogwarts group about the trial.

When he finished Lily said: 'I realize that it is weird for you three to see your former friend go to Azkaban, but I can not say that I feel sorry about it.'

James and the others shrugged, but none of them replied. It was Percy who spoke up next: 'I did not expect a life sentence.' When everybody looked at him he uncomfortably shifted on his chair and explained: 'I browsed through some of the law books in the Hogwarts library and figured that Pettigrew would get some thirty years at the worst.'

James nodded: 'That is what our lawyer predicted as well. But he also explained that this would be a political trial and that Fudge was likely going to try and get a more severe punishment. It turned out that he was right.'

Percy looked surprised: 'So the only reason that Pettigrew got a heavier sentence is that Fudge wanted it?'

'That, and the fact that none of the wizengamot members felt the urge to stand up and defend Pettigrew.' James shrugged.

'That does not seem right.' Percy protested, but James and most others just shrugged. They agreed with the boy, but what could they do about it? Beside that, in most of their opinions it worked out just fine today.

'I did not know that you were interested in law Percy?' Arthur wondered.

With a self-conscious shrug Percy replied: 'Neither did I. But it was rather interesting when I browsed through the books.'

'Maybe you should think about becoming a lawyer.' Molly suggested, 'I have to admit that I was very impressed with the way Mr. Stephenson helped us. And of course I am still grateful that we could join with your defence.' She nodded to James and Sirius, 'Otherwise we would not have been able to pay for it.'

'I do not know mother.' Percy replied slowly, 'I always thought I would join the ministry after Hogwarts.'

Molly smiled: 'You still have two years to decide Percy. I am just happy that you are not talking about dragons or pyramids all the time.'

Percy just smiled in return and Hermione took over: 'Doesn't the wizarding world work with free lawyers? I am sure the muggle world has a system that provides help for people that can not pay a lawyer. I am not sure what it is called though.'

'I know what you mean.' Lily mused, 'Although I am not sure if it would have worked this time or if it only provides help to actual suspects. Still, I think there is no wizarding equivalent… Did Peter have a lawyer?'

'No.' Remus replied, 'He tried to do his own defence, but it was rather useless since he was panicking half the time. And even when he tried to argue his case Stephenson kept interrupting him and ruining his arguments.'

'I see.' Lily frowned, 'Maybe we should think about sponsoring something like that when time allows it James. It looks like a fault in our system.'

James shrugged, for now they had Voldemort to worry about. But maybe after he was gone. 'I guess so. The problem is that the few wizarding lawyers that exist will most likely not agree to work for decent prices. So a fund like that could become very expensive soon. But we can look into it in a couple of years I guess.' He did not miss Percy's calculating look, but he decided not to say anything about it. After all, what would it matter if the kid went into laws?

For a couple of hours the group kept on talking, mostly about how the kids were doing at Hogwarts. James even managed to pull Lily aside for a few minutes and asked her if there were already any leads about the monster that was supposed to show up this year. But apparently all students were behaving normally, only a Ravenclaw first year girl called Luna Lovegood seemed to behave rather odd every now and then. But James agreed with Lily that it had most likely more to do with her upbringing than with any kind of monster that would become dangerous to the school. After all, her father was not exactly a boring person.

_A/N: And that was Peter. Those last two chapters show exactly why I can not really predict how long this story is going to take by the way. I had second year more or less planned out, and Peter was not really involved in it. Then I figured it would be a bit odd if nobody noticed him with all those marauder maps around, and BAM, 8000 more words on a new sideline;) Still, I think I managed to (ab)use the chapters for a few useful details which might return later in the story._

_So, to reviews again. Let me start by saying thanks to everyone that explained the color/ colour thing. Of course now I realise that some of my English teachers used to mention the differences between UK and US English, but I pretty much forgot about it. After all, it is about ten years since my last English class;) I will keep using my British spelling controller by the way, since that is the one I used for the first thirty chapters. I'll just ignore whatever Scrivener has to say about my spelling in the meantime… Or find out how to change it's settings to UK as well…_

_Rori Potter, Teufel1987, HarnGin, Happylady, MSupernatural, Michaeldavidgeng, David-El, Blue Luver5000, MAFITA: Thanks!_

_RRW: How did you know that? About Percy as a lawyer I mean;) I am not going to focus too much attention on Percy by the way, but there will be some changes around him. _

_MaeSilverpaws1: Well, the trials happened but I pretty much skipped the actual trial. I tried to write about it, but it turned out boring so I worked around it;)_

_Eldersprig: I am not saying that I disagree with you, but I think that in this case McGonagall has a point. With only so few registered animagi it should be a bit surprising that one suddenly shows up in the Gryffindor common room._

_Sanbeegoldiewhitey: Yup, but his spell arsenal is going to expand soon enough._

_Man of faith: Yeah, the amount of maps made it very unlikely for Pettigrew to remain hidden. And I guess the Gryffindor students were a bit more suited to capture a rat than Crookshanks was in the prisoner of Azkaban. Or at least, Ron was less able to defend his rat._

_Zeynel: Glad that I was not the only one;) And yeah, I think that Percy is the one that changed most because of the last few chapters._

_Mworth1019: I am afraid that no little Potters will show up before Voldemort is gone;)_

_Guardian54: I do not think that Dumbledore wanted to be disarmed while there was a dark mark floating above Hogwarts. Of course, he had prepared to die that year, and he put the situation to his hand. But I think that at the time his intentions were to enter the castle and find out if any students were in danger, not to be a sitting duck for Malfoy. I guess Harry could try to catch Dumbledore while he is distracted or tired though. And I agree that disarming should be good enough to claim the elder wand, it worked in canon after all._

_Nagasmythreality: Harry and his friends have been working on their animagus training every now and then for a couple of years. I have not yet decided what animals they will be though, and it will most likely take them a couple more years to achieve the transformation._

_Becuzitswrong: Always nice when someone new starts reading and reviews a lot of the chapters, but I'll try and reply to all of them at once;) I think most of your questions were answered when you read on… I am not quite sure if I adjusted Amelia's age, I could not find out her actual age anywhere. But in my story she is only a couple years older than Sirius and the others. I do wonder what magical games you would compare to paintball though?_


	33. Quidditch tryouts

**Quidditch try-outs**

Harry felt rather nervous when he walked towards the quidditch field. Fred, George, Alicia, Angelina and Katie had all assured him that he would easily win the try-out, and the brand new Nimbus 2000 that his father had given him for his birthday should help as well. But still he was nervous. Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor quidditch captain had decided that there would be no try-outs for the other positions, and because of that there were quite a lot of people who wanted to try for that spot. Harry had overheard several others mumbling that they would at least be better than McLaggen, although the tall boy himself was often and loudly complaining that he should be the seeker again since the rest of the team would be the same as well.

His friends left him at the edge on the field to join the other onlookers. And he marched toward the other hopefuls. Next to himself and McLaggen there were eight other candidates, all of them from fifth year or higher. His own year mates and the other DA members had told them they were not going to compete against him as a seeker, it had been flattering, but right now he would not have minded if there had been some more people of about his own age waiting for Oliver Wood and the other members of the team. He felt rather silly with all those much taller kids around him. It did not help that the grass of the field had not been prepared for the season yet and came to his knees.

Eventually the six team members showed up though. Wood, the burly captain, looked at each potential seeker for a short time in turn. Harry had the feeling that Wood took some more time while he looked at him, but maybe that was just his imagination. After Wood finished his inspection he nodded and said: 'Welcome all. We're going to keep this quite simple. Angelina will release five snitches, at my whistle you guys can all go and try to catch one or more. As soon as the fifth snitch is caught I will blow my whistle again and everybody gets back here. Everybody who has caught one or more snitches will pass on towards the second round, and if we believe that somebody had bad luck we will invite him or her to pass on as well. Any questions?'

Harry took the few seconds that Wood gave them to study his opponents once more. Now that they were almost starting his nerves seemed to calm down a bit, and he could finally think about tactics. He realized quickly enough that he was by far the smallest and lightest competitor, which meant that he had to avoid close duels because the others could easily push him away. Instead, he would have to rely on his speed, reflexes and as Hermione always called it, his crazy flying stunts.

Nobody asked Wood anything, he had been clear enough. And Harry almost missed it when Angelina released the five snitches. They shot into random directions and one of them actually got entangled in her braids for a few seconds before it flew away. All of the potential seekers mounted their brooms, and as soon as the whistle sounded nine of them jumped to the sky.

Harry was the only one who did not. He had spotted one of the snitches hugging the ground in front of him. It was some sixty feet away, so he pushed his broom forward in full speed while he was still so low that his toes were touching the high grass. Just before he reached the snitch, which had been hovering just above the grass, it suddenly dived down and to the left, and with a mighty pull on his broomstick Harry made a very sudden turn. He ignored the feeling that his stomach had missed the turn and was still speeding towards the edge of the field. Instead he grabbed the broom between his legs and in one arm while reaching down with his right arm. A second later he had the feeling that his head was covered in grass, but he also had captured a snitch. He quickly pulled himself upright again and pushed the snitch in his pocket.

Looking around he saw that William, the boy who had helped Percy with Scabbers, grabbed another snitch away just before McLaggen and several others could capture it. Harry had of course no way to know how many snitches were still flying around and he flew up and started to fly large circles over the field. After a while he saw a blond girl making a sharp turn and he quickly looked into the same direction and saw another snitch hovering near the goal posts. Once again he pushed his broom toward its maximum speed and quickly outflew McLaggen who had also spotted the other seeker. Another boy tried to block his way, but Harry simply rolled over his broomstick so he was hanging below it and passed under the surprised boy. Only the blond girl was still ahead of him. And although he was sure several others were following him Harry felt confident that no one would fly faster than him. He had a great broom and was by far the lightest of the competitors after all.

The blond girl was rather fast as well though, and although Harry was getting closer it would be a close call. Suddenly the snitch went up a bit, which was in Harry's advantage because he could climb faster. But still, it looked like the girl would be there first. The little golden ball went right through one of the goal hoops and the girl simply flew through it as well, Harry followed her only a few seconds later and saw that the snitch had dropped down once more and was now flying back past the goal post again. He turned his broom down so that it pointed straight to the ground and circled closely around the post, almost hugging it, to grab the snitch. After that, he needed all his attention to pull the broom straight again before he crashed into the field. Only then he looked around and saw the blond girl softly cursing, she had obviously not been able to follow his crazy move. For a second Harry was glad that his mother had not come to watch, she would have scolded him good for that one. Then he heard Woods whistle and he quickly flew over to where the team was waiting.

Wood smiled at him when he landed and said: 'Well done Harry, next round will be between you, William and Elisa. She also captured two.' He looked around and saw a very pretty sixth year girl with long brown curls handing two snitches back to Angelina. And he walked towards the black girl as well to hand over his own captures. Meanwhile Wood was talking with Katie and Fred and after a while he cleared his throat: 'Right, it seems that Mary had two near misses, so we would like to invite her for the next round as well.'

Mary, the blond girl that Harry had just beaten for the last snitch cheered. Then Wood continued: 'All the others can go now, thanks for trying though. Great job all!'

The six others left for the stands, although McLaggen first shot a very sour look to everybody he could see. Nobody really seemed to care about it. Wood gathered the four semi-finalists around him and started to explain again: 'There will be two snitches this time, beside that Fred and George will join you and swing some bludgers around.' He pointed to the three chaser girls next and said: 'The four of us will each focus on one of you four. That way we will try to make sure that the two best seekers will reach the finals, it is possible that the two finalists will not be the two people who captured a snitch. So do not go and take it easy if you captured the first snitch, we will judge you on the full match.'

They all nodded and soon enough the four of them were circling the field once more. Harry had some bad luck when Elisa was the first to spot one of the snitches, he was in the opposite corner and had no way to reach Elisa and William in time to join in their hunt. Eventually, it was Elisa who took the snitch, but William's outstretched hand was only inches behind hers.

Harry softly cursed. He knew that Wood and the others would judge them on flying skills as well, but so far only William and Elisa had been able to show their skills. Sadly, a seeker had not much to do while there was no snitch in side. And a Wronski feint seemed a bit extreme for a try-out, after all people could get seriously hurt if that move went wrong. He suddenly rolled over his broom when Fred slammed a bludger towards him, and during his roll he spotted a golden sparkle on the ground.

As soon as he was upright again he tried to casually look into that direction again, and sure enough the snitch was hovering just above the ground. He did not hesitate but bent low over his broom until he almost lied down and urged it into a breakneck dive. Out of the corner of his eye he saw George hitting another bludger towards him, but he quickly calculated his path and did not move an inch. He did not even flinch when the bludger barely missed him. He pulled out of his dive just in time and had his broom actually flying between the high grasses, so he could not move to a more normal position without hitting the ground. It did not matter, as long as his face was above the grass he could see the snitch. It tried to flee to the left, but Harry expertly steered his broom in a wide turn and quickly grabbed it. He had to move his hand back to the broom immediately because he needed both hands to carefully raise a few feet before sitting upright and showing the snitch to the public. Looking around it seemed like Mary and William had tried to follow his dive but had given up some twenty feet above the ground. Elisa was hovering far away from them and had obviously been in the wrong position this time.

Woods whistle sounded again and the four of them flew towards the team again while Fred and George kept the bludgers busy by hitting them towards each other. As soon as they landed Wood simply said: 'I think it is rather obvious that Elisa and Harry should be our finalists.'

William and Mary both nodded and wished them luck, but then Elisa interrupted: 'In fact, I think you should just take Harry and be done with it.'

Harry looked at her in surprise, the two of them had not even fought each other yet. And he agreed with Woods surprised reaction: 'Are you sure? You did great out there!'

Elisa nodded, which made her curls bounce rather funnily. 'Yeah. Too be perfectly honest I am not that interested in joining the team. I just did not want to watch McLaggen for three more matches. And I have my NEWTs next year, so I would only stay for a year anyway. There is no way that I'd waste time on quidditch in my NEWT year!' Wood looked at her in total bewilderment. But she simply continued: 'Harry is only a second year, so he can stay much longer.' She grinned: 'Beside that, I saw what he did in that duel against Mary and how he just caught that last snitch. There is no way that I would do crazy stuff like that.'

Now Wood smiled back at her and said: 'Well, if you sure…'

'Yes I am.' Elisa simply replied, 'And well done Harry.'

'Thanks!' Harry excitedly said, he had just made the team! It felt a bit odd that he did not have to play against his main competitor, but he was not going to complain about that.

'Yeah, welcome to the team Harry.' Wood said while offering him a hand. As soon as he let go Angelina was the first to hug him, quickly followed by Alicia and Katie. Fred and George took a bit longer to congratulate him, because they first had to get rid of the bludgers, but they made up for it with long winded speeches about how proud they were of their new seeker. Eventually Harry simply ran away from the field to avoid hearing more about his 'emerald green eyes' which 'could spot a snitch from miles away'.

— Two weeks later —

It was the third DA meeting since the capture of Pettigrew. And Harry was finally able to welcome everybody with: 'Today we are going to practice three new spells which are a bit more suited for combat than most first and second year spells; stupefy, incarcerous and accio.'

'Oh, we have been working on them during DADA for the last few weeks!' Lee Jordan enthusiastically replied.

'What a coincidence.' A dry voice replied and everybody turned to the entrance of the great hall to see Lily walking into the hall. She smiled at the polite welcomes that several students offered before she continued: 'Those three spells are usually taught in fourth year, so they might be rather difficult for our first and second and possibly third years. That is why, when Harry and the others told me they wanted to practice them, I asked them to wait a few weeks so I could teach it to the fourth years first. Most of you can still use the extra practice, but I hope you will be able to help me in instructing the younger years.'

All fourth years nodded while several people looked surprised. Until now Harry or Hermione had always worked out how a new spell worked, then they would teach it to Neville and Susan and the four of them together would instruct the DA. Of course, the higher years had often helped them, but this was the first time since Dumbledore's magic revealing spells that a spell would be taught to the DA by an outsider. Nobody complained though, Lily had quickly proven herself to be one of the favourite teachers in Hogwarts after all.

It was a new experience for Harry to learn new spells during the DA meeting. He paired up with Neville and George Weasley joined the two of them when Lily asked the fourth years to act as 'student assistants'. Of course this meant that Neville and Harry had to avoid random tickling charms and other minor hexes. George even turned into a canary once to try and distract Harry, although to be fair he distracted more than half of the DA with that trick, which earned him a short but firm scolding from Lily.

He was a bit surprised when at the end of the session he was the only one not in fourth year to master all three charms. Most of the others had a lot of trouble with the incarcerous. Others, especially first years, lacked the raw magical power to fire a few stunners in a row. Strangely enough Harry himself had experienced most trouble with the summoning charm. Only some twenty minutes before the meeting ended did he first manage to summon a pillow towards himself. Apparently that breached a block somehow, because for the remaining twenty minutes he kept on summoning random things to him without much trouble, including George Weasley.

On their way back to the Gryffindor common room Hermione and several others were enthusiastically debating if more guest teachers would be a good or a bad thing for the DA.

— One month later —

Harry had to try very hard not to belch. He admitted to himself that maybe he should not have had that last bite of treacle tart. But it was so nice! The house elves of Hogwarts had really outdone themselves for Halloween this year. And of course the great hall was brilliantly decorated again. Harry especially liked the thousands of bats who flew around the ceiling and sometimes swooped over the house tables. But the floating pumpkin lanterns were nice as well, especially because Hagrid had somehow managed to grow them extremely large. Harry was sure the biggest ones could easily sit three full grown men. It was just a shame that they were not allowed to wear costumes at Hogwarts. Hermione had once explained to him that in some parts of the muggle world it was customary to dress up for Halloween. And Harry thought it sounded like a cool idea.

Still, he was not going to complain about the way that Hogwarts celebrated Halloween. Not after that treacle tart! And it was a good thing to have a free evening like this. The last few weeks had been very busy with DA meetings and quidditch practice. Wood was getting very fanatic now that their first match against Slytherin was drawing near, especially when he found out that the Slytherin team had somehow acquired seven brand new Nimbus 2001 brooms. And he had them practicing three to four times a week, he had even suggested skipping a few DA meetings, but that idea had been immediately shot down by the other six team members.

Harry was starting to feel a bit nervous about the match as well though. It would be his first real match as a seeker, and his opponent would actually have a better broom. During the try-outs he actually had the best broom of all the competitors, so he hoped he would manage to win against a better broom as well. Especially because the rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor was intense. He sometimes wondered why. Tracey, Daphne and the few Slytherin first years who had joined the DA seemed nice enough. But he had to admit that most Slytherin students were rather haughty and unfriendly at best. Most were actually quite nasty when they had the chance.

Between all the flying and the DA meetings he had very little free time left. And the little that he had was often filled with homework. So a forced lazy evening during which he could only talk and eat like tonight was a good thing to him. Hermione and Susan were for once pulled into Lavenders and Parvati's girl talk. Several first year girls including Ginny Weasley and Natalie McDonald were involved as well.

Which meant that the boys could simply talk quidditch amongst each other, although that meant that Susan looked at them with clear longing every few minutes. Since the DA summer camp Dean kept trying to mention football as well during their quidditch talks. Seamus was actually starting to help his friend there, but Ron always tried to turn the subject back to quidditch and his favourite Chudley Cannons immediately.

It came as a surprise to Harry when the headmaster called for the end of the feast, but when he stood up he did actually feel a bit tired. Although part of it was most likely due to the huge amount of food that he was still processing. Harry and his friends simply followed the huge stream of students that started to walk back to their common rooms. But before they were even halfway there the throng of students suddenly stopped walking and excited murmurs and even shouts arose at the front.

Harry and the others managed to push themselves forward, mostly because some DA members made space for them. Strangely enough they walked into a large but shallow puddle of water before they could see what was going on. When they were almost at the front they could see what had stopped the other students. Large blood red letters were painted on the wall:

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

_A/N: Pfew, took a while to get this update done. Mostly because of RL issues. Nothing too serious, just a run of bad luck in my job hunt that had me distracted a bit… so, if anyone knows a nice job for me it might actually increase the update speed from now on;)_

_Any guesses to which student is carrying the diary?_

_So, to reviews again:_

_Teufel1987: They could have done so yeah. But I guess a stay at Azkaban is not really a vacation anyway… and this way Peter can have a bit more punishment heading his way;) I am not sure about what Hermione did after school in canon… I do not think it is mentioned in the epilogue?_

_PaulBlay: I am going to respond to all your reviews at once. For chapter 3: Yeah, magic would be boring without those flaws wouldn't it?;) Chapter 5: The main problem with Trelawney was that she was vulnerable. Snape/ Voldemort knew she was the one who gave the prophecy, so it would make sense for them to try and question her. Which meant that James and the others did not want to refresh her memory too much. And to be honest I always thought poison ivy was the English word for stinging nettles (well, the English word for 'brandnetels', but you get what I meant). At least, I know that for next time :D_

_Magical fan18, Jbfritz, Rori Potter, Happylady, Sanbeegoldiewhitey, MAFITA, Blue Luver5000, Ninkasi: Thanks!_

_Man of Faith: I once had a teacher who was a part time comedian as well, I think I'll take him as an example for how Sirius is going to act as a professor :D_

_MaeSilverpaws1: In a way Hermione and Lily are alike I guess. Or at least, the way that Lily developed in my story;) In canon I think the only comparison that was made was about them both being brilliant and muggleborn._

_Ruby101: Yeah, but not for this individual case. And they will not pay him any extra money to include the Weasley family._

_Zeynel: It is so tempting to work on all those ripples and how they influence side secondary characters and side stories... but on the other hand I do have to focus on Harry and James to keep the story moving. So I am trying to simply highlight some things. For example, Percy will be a bit different, and as you can see I do explain why he will be different, but I am not going to describe his full life story;)_

_Kali Libitina: Quite a few people actually, but thanks anyway :D_


	34. The chamber of secrets

**The chamber of secrets**

Harry studied the letters and noticed that Mrs. Norris, the caretakers cat, was hanging on a torch bracket below it. He wondered what sick person would do something like that. Meanwhile his friends were commenting: 'The chamber of secrets…' Hermione softly mumbled, 'I read about that a while ago… But I can not really remember what it said.'

'What heir?' Neville wanted to know.

Before either Susan or Harry could reply to one of their friends a voice shouted from behind them: 'Enemies of the heir beware! You'll be next, mudbloods!'

They all turned and saw that Draco Malfoy had pushed himself forward through the Slytherin students. He seemed rather gleeful about it all. Behind him Harry noticed Tracey and Daphne who both kept their expressions carefully neutral. Most students of the other three houses, including Harry, showed their anger quite openly though. But before anyone could move against Malfoy a new voice shouted: 'What's going on here? What's going on?'

Argus Filch, the caretaker, was shouldering himself through the throng of students. As soon as he could see the scene he stopped and all colour left his face. 'My cat! My cat! What's happened to Mrs. Norris?'

None of the students replied. Partly because they had no idea what happened to the poor cat, and partly because they did not want to draw the attention of the clearly distraught caretaker. Again, the silence was disrupted by a new arrival. This time it was the headmaster, followed by a number of other teachers. He did not speak, but everybody turned his attention to him while he swept towards the wall and studied the words for a few seconds. Only after he detached the cat from the torch bracket did the headmaster speak: 'Argus, come with me please. You too, Minerva and Severus.'

'My office is nearest headmaster. Feel free to use it.' Lily softly said, while her eyes were shooting all around the corridor.

'Thank you Lily.' Dumbledore replied, 'If you and Pomona could make sure that the students retire to their common rooms?'

Lily nodded, clearly distracted by her survey of the surroundings. So it was basically Pomona Sprout, the herbology teacher, who got the students moving towards their common rooms again. She assured all the students that everything would be alright, but Harry was certain that he was not the only one who did not fully believe her words.

Once in the common room Harry and his friends immediately moved to the boy's dormitory. Most Gryffindors stayed in the common room to talk about what happened, but the four of them felt like they could use some privacy. To their surprise, the dormitory was not as empty as they expected it to be. Ron was lying on his bed, he shifted to a sitting position when the four of them walked in and noticed their expressions: 'Hey guys, anything wrong?'

Harry blinked in surprise: 'You mean you did not see what happened in the hallway?'

Rons blank look was enough of an answer. Harry and Susan quickly told him what happened, and when they finished he softly whistled: 'Wow, that sounds bad. I left the feast some thirty minutes ago I think. Had a bit too much to eat, so I figured I'd visit a bathroom and head back here. Seems I missed all the excitement.'

Harry nodded, he remembered how Ron had left a bit before the headmaster ended the feast.

'Do you know anything about the chamber of secrets Ron?' Hermione wondered, 'I am sure I read about it before…'

Ron looked bewildered by the very idea that the Gryffindor bookworm thought he knew something she did not. 'No idea. I guess it has to do with Hogwarts somehow?'

Hermione's face turned blank for a few seconds before she gasped: 'Of course! _Hogwarts: A History!_ Brilliant.' Then her excitement disappeared again: 'Oh, I left my copy at home. I guess it is a bit late to go the library now, right?'

Before Harry could offer his invisibility cloak Susan replied: 'Hermione, you know I love you, but sometimes you forget all about being a witch. Dobby!'

With a loud crack the excitable house elf of Susan's family appeared. He was proudly wearing the old pirate hat that Sirius had given him last christmas. It was black with a white skull above crossed bones depicted on it, and according to Sirius it clearly showed that Dobby was bonded to the Black and Bones families. Harry and all the others who knew about the standard pirate flag from the muggle world had tried not to laugh at it, but after Sirius had carefully explained that it was not meant as clothes but as a family symbol Dobby was ridiculously proud of it. He squeaked: 'What can Dobby do for Ms. Bonesy?'

'Hey Dobby.' Susan smiled, 'My friend Hermione forgot one of her books, it is called _Hogwarts: A History._ Could you go to her place and get it for us?' The elf nodded happily and with another loud crack he disappeared again. Susan looked surprised and mumbled: 'And try not to be seen. Ah well, it is not like your parents do not know about house elves.'

'Guess so.' Hermione shrugged.

'I still think that your house elf is nuts Susan. Fun guy though.' Neville smiled.

'Yeah, I just wish he would start calling me Susan already. I think Sirius told him to keep saying Ms. Bonesy, just to annoy me.' Susan replied with a frown.

'I still think we should give him an eye patch sometime.' Harry mused.

'You all have house elves?' Ron, who had clearly missed Harry's attempt at a joke, wanted to know.

'Well, beside Hermione of course. And have sounds a bit odd, they are more like family friends.' Harry replied. He tried to judge the strange expression on Rons face, but he was distracted when Dobby appeared again. The house elf quickly handed the book to Hermione before he bowed to Susan and said: 'I am sorry Ms. Bonesy, but Sirius needs me now. Dobby wishes you all good night!' And he was gone before anyone could reply to him.

Neville slowly shook his head in wonder. But beside him everybody already looked at Hermione who was browsing through the book with amazing speed. After some thirty seconds she said: 'Ah, here it is! Listen! There is a myth that Salazar Slytherin constructed a well hidden secret room before he left Hogwarts. According to legend he sealed the chamber in such a way that only his heir would be able to open it. Then the heir could unleash the monster that is hidden inside the chamber and purge the school of all unworthy students. Most headmasters of Hogwarts have searched for the chamber, and none of them have found any proof of it. Still, the myth is well known and one of the more interesting myths that surround the castle of Hogwarts.' She read on for a while in silence before she said: 'Then it goes on about similar myths and how unlikely they all are.'

Harry shrugged uncomfortably: 'At least someone believes in the story. Why else would he or she kill a cat and write down that message?' He wanted to add that they all knew that something bad was supposed to happen in Hogwarts this year. But he could hardly start talking about the prophecy and Williams fore-tellings in front of Ron.

After a long silence it was Hermione who said: 'But it does not make any sense. The founders lived a thousand years ago, how could a monster stay alive in a secret room for that long?'

Susan raised an eyebrow: 'Magic?'

'What? You mean that Slytherin installed a huge magical fridge filled with boxes of monster food or so?' Hermione replied, a bit offended somehow.

Susan raised her hands in defence: 'No, nothing like that. But maybe the monster is in some kind of magical sleep or something like that.'

'That is, if any of this is true.' Neville thoughtfully replied. Again, Harry wanted to argue that they knew that there would be a monster this year. Or at least, they strongly suspected it. But again, Rons presence stopped him. Neville continued: 'It is possible that someone is abusing the legend as a false trail.'

After a few seconds they all nodded at that. Before anyone could continue there was some noise at the door and they all saw the Weasley twins entering. They smiled and Fred spoke: 'Heya Ron, we had not seen you since the feast. We were just wondering if you were alright.'

'Yeah.' Ron grinned, 'I left a bit earlier, been talking with those four after you all returned.'

'Alright then.' George nodded, 'So, what do our esteemed DA leaders think about this whole thing?'

That started a new and long discussion which led to no new ideas. Eventually the girls and the Weasley twins left for their own dormitories, but not before Susan and Hermione had agreed with Harry and Neville that they would talk about the whole monster thing again tomorrow.

After their classes were finished on the next day the foursome found themselves in Lily's office. It was still as empty as last time, although an odd poster decorated one of the walls. She smiled at them and said: 'I am sure you guys have already investigated the whole message?'

Hermione shrugged: 'We read about the chamber in _Hogwarts: A History. _But it did not explain that much. Beside that, we do of course know that William warned us about a monster in our second year. But we have no idea what kind of monster would kill a cat and hang it from a torch bracket.'

Lily shook her head: 'Actually, the cat was only petrified. Which makes it even more difficult. There are not that many monsters who would petrify their victims, after all it only makes them literally harder to eat. The only monster I could think of was a cockatrice, but that hardly seems like a concern for a castle filled with wizards and witches.'

'A what?' Neville wondered.

'A cockatrice is a strange mix between a rooster and a dragon. It can be very dangerous when you encounter it by yourself, but it is rather small and can easily be defeated by a group of wizards. Beside that, it dies when it looks into a mirror or hears a rooster crow.' Lily explained.

'It dies when it hears a crowing rooster?' Hermione asked, clearly bewildered by the idea.

Lily shrugged: 'That is what the myths say. As far as I know, no wizard has actually really tested it. I guess that in most cases they did not have a rooster ready when they encountered one. Still, as I said… I hardly believe the monster to be a cockatrice. If only because they only live for fifty years or so.'

'Neville suggested that someone might be abusing the legend of the chamber.' Harry suggested.

Lily looked thoughtful: 'Good one Neville. Someone could smuggle a monster like a cockatrice in and out of Hogwarts while everybody searches for a mythological hidden room.' She smiled, 'Maybe I should ask Hagrid to spread his roosters around a bit. Anyway, I told Remus about what happened and he is looking into it. He is by far the one who knows most about magical creatures in our group.'

'Are we sure it is actually a monster?' Susan wondered, 'Wouldn't it be easier for a wizard to simply petrify the cat? Instead of carrying a monster around to do it?'

Lily shook her head: 'No, after the headmaster looked at the poor cat I took my turn as well… It is possible to petrify a cat, or a human or any other living being like that, with magic. But only if you are very good at transfiguration, and even then it will be most difficult. Albus and Minerva could most likely do it if they had some thirty minutes to spare. Sadly reserving this condition with magic is impossible. And I think James could do it as well, but there are not that many others. And I can not see why someone would take the effort to use such complicated magic on a cat.'

Susan looked impressed: 'I did not know that James was that good at transfiguration.'

Lily smiled proudly: 'Oh yes, he could have gone for his transfiguration master after Hogwarts. But he was never much of an academic I guess.'

'Muggle mythology also talks about a monster who turns people into stone.' Hermione said.

Lily nodded: 'I know, the medusa right?' Hermione also nodded and Lily continued: 'I think it is unlikely that she would have been hiding at Hogwarts all those years. Beside that, isn't she killed by one of those Greek demigods?'

'I guess so.' Hermione shrugged, 'I just figured it was worth looking into.'

'Of course.' Lily agreed, 'I will tell Remus about it. Although most likely he already knows about the medusa.'

'What can we do in the meanwhile?' Harry wanted to know.

In answer Lily pulled her wand and pointed it to the wall. Suddenly the lone poster depicting some heroic witch changed into the activated marauders map. 'I think we should try to find out if anyone is acting weirdly. Someone has to direct the monster after all. I already added a charm to my map that tells me whenever a stranger enters Hogwarts. But it only warned me about some ministry officials earlier in the year. There were no strangers inside Hogwarts yesterday, which meant that a student or a teacher wrote down those words and put the caretaker's cat on that bracket.'

They all frowned at that. Then Harry said: 'And all teachers were at the feast, right?'

'Beside Trelawney, the divination teacher.' Lily nodded, 'I think she is an unlikely candidate though. Although I am going to keep an eye on her just to be sure. Do you know of any students who missed the feast?'

Harry shrugged: 'Ron left a bit earlier, but I do not really think he had enough time to summon a monster, petrify a cat and write those words. Unless he had it prepared in advance, but it seems unlikely to me. Beside that all of our year was at the feast.'

'I do not think any of us did a head count though.' Susan said, 'It is possible that a Gryffindor student from another year was not at the feast. We just did not pay any attention to it. Let alone to any of the other tables. All I know is that Ginny and Natalie were talking with us.'

Lily nodded: 'I guessed no one would really miss anyone but their close friends at a feast like that. Still, it might be worth looking into.'

'According to the message there was an heir involved.' Neville slowly said in his thinking aloud mode. His friends had learned not to interrupt him when he did so and after a while he continued: 'The book also mentioned that the chamber could only be opened by the heir of Slytherin. I know I argued that it is possible that it is all a ruse, but maybe we should find out if there is an heir of Slytherin among the students?'

Lily smiled: 'You should be an auror sometime Neville.'

With an awkward shrug Neville replied: 'I just tried to think how my father would handle this.'

'And he was one of the most promising aurors during the war.' Lily simply replied, 'Anyway, I think we can follow this track easily enough.' She pulled her mirror out of her shirt, removed it from the chain and enlarged it before she called: 'Sirius!'

Seconds later Sirius' face appeared and he smiled at them: 'Heya, everything alright there?'

'Yeah, we are fine.' Lily shortly replied, 'But Neville here just pointed out that it might be worth finding out if Slytherins heir is actually among the students. I know that you had to learn all those family lines by heart when you were a kid, think you can help us?'

Sirius looked very thoughtful for a few minutes: 'It is a long time ago that I was forced to study those things… If I remember right the last direct heir of Slytherin was a girl who married with a Gaunt. That family eventually became quite unimportant and faded to the background of magical society, and no one really cared what happened to them anymore. I am not sure, but I think the last of the Gaunts died a few decades ago.'

'How can the family of Slytherins heir fade into the background?' Lily wanted to know, 'I'd imagine that it would be quite the status symbol to have a founder of Hogwarts in your ancestry somehow. Especially if you are the only family with that claim'

Sirius nodded: 'Yeah, it is. Even the very faint link between the Potters and Gryffindor works in your favour sometimes. But a few centuries ago the Gaunt family lost all its wealth somehow. And since they always married inside their own family the other pureblood families had nothing to gain from them. No money, and no pureblood kids to marry. So nobody really cared about what happened to them. I will look into it and see if there are any Gaunt relatives still alive.'

'I do not think that there are any Gaunt kids at school at least.' Lily mused before she turned to the mirror again: 'So, if all the Gaunts are gone there is no chance that the heir of Slytherin will step forward and open the chamber of secrets?'

Sirius hesitated: 'Not the legal heir at least. But during a thousand years it is of course very likely that one of his descendants had a kid that never made the official family trees. Either a squib kid that they sent away, or a child outside their wedding. I guess in that way it is very well possible that a muggleborn is a direct descendant from Slytherin, although I am not sure if magic would accept him or her as the heir. All I can look into is what happened to his legal heirs though.'

'I see.' Lily nodded, 'Thanks anyway.'

'Anytime.' Sirius smiled, 'I'll let you know when I find out more about the Gaunts. Goodbye all!'

They all waved and Sirius disappeared again. Lily shrunk the mirror and put the chain around her neck again before she said: 'Well, I think that is all we can do for now. Just make sure never to walk the hallways on your own until we find out more. In fact, I will give that advice to all my DADA classes. And please, if you notice a student acting odd, tell me about it.'

Susan hesitated: 'Well, I noticed that Draco Malfoy immediately made the link between the chamber of secrets and muggleborn students… I guess it not proves anything, but I think he was one of the few who did.'

Harry and Neville nodded, but Hermione and Lily looked doubtful. Eventually Hermione said: 'Malfoy is one of the most vocal Slyhterins, so he will be suspected by a lot of people. And logically seen that means that even if he is involved he would get somebody else to do it.'

'Did any of you see him during the feast?' Lily wondered.

The four kids looked at each other and shrugged, none of them had really watched the Slytherin table. Eventually Lily said: 'I'll guess we just have to keep our eyes open and hope for the best. And as I said, do not wander the hallways on your own.'

They all nodded in agreement before they ran for the great hall, they were only just in time for dinner. Of course, his father had told Harry long ago how to find the Hogwarts kitchens if he ever missed a meal, but he preferred to eat in the great hall. Especially right now, he thought it was a bad idea to draw suspicion by missing meals.

_A/N: Tough chapter to write. The problem with plots like this is that you should work them out in advance and then try to write the chapters that connect it. And if possible edit the first few chapters after you finish the last ones;) At least, that is how I worked for my own book… But in a fanfiction where you try to write one or two chapters a week it is impossible, so I had to be very careful what to reveal and what not to reveal;) Hope you liked it anyway, bit of a talky chapter, but it had to happen._

_Reviews:_

_Michaeldavidgeng, Pappy's Girl, FairyVampire, Happylady, TsukiyoTenshi, Rori Potter, MAFITA, : Thanks!_

_Teufel1987: About Hermione's career I'll just point you to cflats review and let you two decide;) Not because I think he is right, but because I simply do not know what she did after Hogwarts. Good thing that when I eventually reach that period Hermione will be a lot different from canon Hermione I guess…_

_I guess the 2001 was not on the market yet when James bought his present. Not sure about the firebolt, it would be cool I guess. I just have to find a reason for him to get it…_

_Mwinter1, Cflat: Yup, that is going to be a problem. It would be a bit lame to simply argue that Harry still is a parseltongue and that Dumbledore simply made a mistake in canon by arguing that he got it from Voldy. I'll think of something;)_

_Snakefang93: Mostly because both his magic and body are still developing. For the next few years there is no way that he will beat Voldemort in pure power, so the training is mostly focused on broadening the number of spells he knows. Pure power and duel training will wait a few more years. And do not forget that with both a good DADA teacher and the DA still running Harry is training a lot more than in canon. I just stopped focusing on the DA too much because I figured it would only slow down the story at this point. Instead I'll just add a few short parts about how it is progressing every now and then._

_MagicDhani8: He was mentioned this time;) And he will get his screentime every now and then, but the main focus of the story will be on Harry._

_Voldemort is dead: Yeah, I think Harry not being the 'boy-who-lived' is one of the most important differences here. It saves him a lot of unwanted attention. Although, as the son of the 'couple-that-killed-Voldemort' and heir of an important family, he still gets a bit of it every now and then._

_Sachaelle: 1. Well, he already noticed a pretty girl during the quidditch try-outs. But I guess that during third and fourth year he will start to pay more attention to the girls around him. _

_2. A bird animagus is a possibility I was thinking about as well, so maybe. I am not quite sure yet though, some kind of large predator could be fun as well._

_3. Every kid that went to a marauder to ask advice about girls should visit a mind healer to have their brains checked;)_

_RRW: I am sure you are not surprised when I won't answer that :D_


	35. First match

**First match**

It was a week after Halloween, and although most of the students followed Lily's advice and walked around in groups the atmosphere was rather relaxed. After all, the only thing that happened so far was that a cat was petrified, and to make things worse, that cat had been pretty much hated by the student body. So after a day or two the excited talks had died down and the vast majority of the students pretended that nothing was amiss.

Most likely Harry was the only one who was too nervous to eat any breakfast today. Susan and Hermione had eventually forced him to eat a few sandwiches. Not that it had anything to do with the chamber of secrets or the monster that was supposedly hiding in it. No, today was the day of his first official quidditch match. Not just that, but they had to play Slytherin, the arch rival of Gryffindor and to top it of their team was all equipped with brand new Nimbus 2001s. For weeks now, Malfoy and the other Slytherin team members had been loudly debating about how they would destroy their opponents. Sadly enough the Gryffindor team members could not really deny Slytherins advantage, and Harry could only hope that he looked as determined as the other six. And not as sick as he really felt.

Of course, all his friends had told him that he would destroy Malfoy. And even his father and Sirius had given him a short pep talk just before he walked into the changing room. They obviously did not want to miss Harry's first match, but he was not sure if he felt happy about that or even more nervous. He almost missed it when Wood addressed the team. Their captain sounded rather gloomy when he said: 'Slytherin have better brooms than us. No point denying it. But we have better people on our brooms! We've been training harder than they have, we've been flying in all weathers-'

'Too true.' Muttered George, 'I haven't been properly dry since August.'

Wood simply ignored him and continued: 'and we're going to make them rue the day that they let that little bit of slime, Malfoy, buy their way into their team.'

Chest heaving with emotion, Wood turned to Harry: 'It'll be down to you, Harry, to show them that a seeker has to have something more than a rich father. Get to that snitch before Malfoy or die trying, Harry, because we've got to win today. We've got to.'

'So no pressure, Harry.' Fred said, winking at him.

Harry grinned back at Fred. Strangely enough Woods request made him feel less nervous, instead he now felt as determined as the other players looked. Or at least, that is what he told himself. He took a few deep breaths before he followed the team outside, where they were greeted by a wall of noise made up of roars and cheers. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were also supporting Gryffindor today, mostly because everyone thought it unfair that the Slytherins had seven Nimbus 2001s. And also because Slytherin house was never that popular to begin with. Harry looked around the stands and saw his parents and Sirius cheering loudly. Then he noticed a large banner floating above the mass of red and gold students. It had a picture of him and large letters that shouted 'Potter for president!' and flashed between different colours. He grinned and waved towards the Gryffindors, which made the cheers even louder.

Then madam Hooch, the flying instructor, told the captains to shake hands before she blew her whistle to signal the start of the game. Harry immediately shot into the air, flying far above the other players in his search for the snitch.

'All right there, no-brain?' Yelled Malfoy while shooting underneath him. Harry took a few seconds to judge the speed of Malfoys broom and realized that he would not have much of a chance in a full out race. He needed to spot the snitch without Malfoy noticing, or outmanoeuvre him somehow. For now Malfoy seemed occupied with just streaking over the field in full speed though.

He dived down a few feet to avoid an incoming bludger and grinned at the manic expression on George's face when the redhead flew after it. Then he started to slowly circle the field. He blocked out most of Lee Jordan's commentary, but he noticed that the Slytherins were outscoring the Gryffindors quite a bit, after a while he heard Lee Jordan saying: 'And Spinnet puts the penalty shot away easily. Slytherin still in the lead though, with eighty against forty.'

He kept circling for a while, but there was still no sign of the snitch. After a while he noticed that Malfoy was starting to track him and he softly cursed. There was no way that he could out fly Malfoy if the snitch appeared. But maybe… Suddenly he pushed down his broom and went into a very steep dive. He heard a curse behind him but simply pressed forward in an even steeper angle until his broom was almost vertical. Wind blew past his face and he was very happy that his glasses protected his eyes against it. The ground was coming closer faster and faster and out of the corner of his eyes he saw that Malfoy was getting next to him, frantically searching for the snitch. Harry kept going faster and faster and only a few feet above the ground he gave a mighty pull on his broom and pulled it horizontal again just in time. His feet brushed the short grass of the field, but behind him he heard a loud crash. Seconds later madam Hooch whistled for a time out while Harry listened to Lee cheering: 'Harry Potter, the Gryffindor seeker, just performed a perfect Wronski feint! The first one ever at Hogwarts I think!' Only after a few seconds he added, a lot less enthusiastic: 'Let's hope that the Slytherin seeker is okay.'

Harry looked back but could not see Malfoy since the other six Slytherins were around him, several of them shot him rather nasty looks. He simply shrugged and moved on towards his own team mates. Fred and George cheered when he joined them and shouted: 'That was absolutely brilliant!'

'Yes, well done Harry.' Wood smiled, 'But there is a problem… Malfoy will be out of the game for five minutes, even though madam Pomfrey will have him alright in a few seconds. It is obligatory after making a crash like that. That means you will be the only seeker in the field.'

Harry shrugged: 'That does not really sound like a problem to me?'

Wood grimaced: 'The problem is that both Slytherin beats will now focus on keeping you busy.'

'Oh.' Harry nodded, 'That makes sense I guess. But I can avoid a few bludgers, I practised a lot with Fred and George.'

'I know.' Wood agreed, 'Still, it means that Fred and George will be pulled away from the chaser fight every now and then. And without them it will be even more difficult to keep along with the Slytherins… So if you could find that snitch quickly?'

'I do my best.' Harry simply replied.

Wood nodded: 'I know.' Then he turned to the three chasers and said: 'Try to ignore Flint while defending. He is powerful and fast, but his shot is pretty much useless. I can handle it.'

The three girls agreed and then madam Hooch joined them: 'Are you ready to go again?'

'Of course.' Wood nodded, then as an afterthought he added: 'How is the Slytherin seeker?'

'Madam Pomfrey is still monitoring him, but he should be back in the field in a few minutes.' She replied, then she turned to Harry and her hawk like eyes became even fiercer: 'And Mr. Potter, I admit that it was a nice move. And technically it is within the rules. But I hope you will show a bit more caution during your Hogwarts career from now on.'

Harry did not know what to say to that, so he simply nodded. A few seconds later they were back up into the air. And quickly it became obvious that Wood was right, Harry was dodging bludgers left and right. And although Fred and George did a good job in diverting the bludgers back towards the Slytherin chasers he had to keep an eye out for the heavy balls all the time. After a while Fred shouted: 'Malfoy is coming back!'

Harry followed Fred's gaze and saw the blond seeker moving back into the air again, it seemed that he was flying a bit slower than before though. Suddenly Harry's eyes widened in surprise when he saw the snitch appearing just behind Malfoy. He did not think but simply pushed forward with all speed. Malfoys eyes showed naked panic when he saw Harry, four beaters and two bludgers heading his way and he quickly dived down again. Harry ignored him and simply flew straight towards the snitch. It was an easy catch, although he immediately had to dodge two bludgers after capturing it before he could land.

He raised his fist with the snitch towards the stands in triumph and laughed when he saw his father and Sirius doing some kind of odd victory dance. Then his eyes suddenly closed when white hot pain shot through his left shoulder.

He must have missed a few seconds after that, for when he opened his eyes again he saw Fred and George standing next to him. Both with their clubs raised. A little further away he saw his mother shouting to Malfoy, who was holding another club. Red angry sparks were shooting out of her wand, and Harry laughed softly when he imagined the scolding that Malfoy was now receiving. Suddenly his fathers face appeared in front of him: 'Harry? You are awake again? Are you alright?'

'Yeah, I think so.' Harry replied, then he tried to shift his shoulder and winced when another flare of pain shot through him: 'Or maybe not.'

'Madam Pomfrey is almost here.' His father said, clearly worried, 'Just try not to move.' Then he smiled proudly: 'Oh, by the way. Brilliant match!'

'Thanks.' Harry mumbled before slipping back into darkness again.

The next time that his eyes opened again he was in the hospital wing. Before he could say anything Madam Pomfrey showed up and smiled at him: 'Welcome, Mr. Potter. I have to admit that this brings back memories from when your father came here after his quidditch matches. Although usually, he was injured during the match.'

Harry tried to smile, but it did not really work. He shifted his face a bit and saw that his shirt had been cut open. There was a large amount of greenish half liquid substance on his shoulder. He frowned and asked: 'What is that?'

'It is a mix of several healing potions and ointments.' The matron replied, 'That bludger hit you rather hard, and I am afraid you will have to spend the night here. You will be perfectly alright tomorrow though.'

'Oh.' Was all that Harry could say to that. After a while he added: 'Thanks.'

'You are welcome.' Pomfrey smiled, 'I'll tell the others that you are awake.'

Before Harry could ask about who the others were she disappeared. Seconds later his quidditch team gathered around his bed, all smiling proudly. Although especially the girls looked a bit worried. Katie was the first to ask: 'Are you alright Harry? It looked rather bad.'

Harry shrugged, or tried to shrug at least since the green stuff blocked every move he tried to make with his left shoulder. 'Pomfrey says I should be fine in a day.'

'Oh, that's good.' Katie smiled, 'She knows what she is talking about.'

All other team members nodded. Then Wood said: 'Spectacular match though Harry. I am really looking forward to the rest of the season now.'

Next to him Alicia smiled: 'Slytherin was by far the favourite with their new brooms. Now that we have beaten them I think we are.' She smirked, 'Beside that, they need a new seeker.'

The team laughed and Harry asked: 'What happened?'

'Your mother gave Malfoy detention with Filch for two months, took fifty points and banned him for the rest of the season for his cowardly attack. I think she said that Malfoy should learn what sport was all about before competing again.' Angelina grinned.

Fred laughed: 'I was looking at Malfoy when your mother was scolding him. It was so funny, I wish I could have taken a picture of his face.'

'Nah, I want a picture of how he looked when he saw Harry and all of us heading his way just after he came back in the field.' George added, and now Harry laughed as well. He remembered that panic-stricken look well enough.

For a while they kept on talking about the match and their chances for the cup. But then Harry's family and friends walked into the hospital wing and the quidditch team quickly made room.

His parents and Sirius sat down to his left while Hermione, Susan and Neville took seats on his right. As soon as they were all seated Lily was the first to speak: 'Madam Pomfrey told us you would be alright?'

Harry nodded, 'Yeah, just have to stay for the night.' Then he smiled: 'Oh, by the way, she told me that I reminded her of you dad. Apparently you visited the hospital wing sometimes after quidditch as well?'

James smiled proudly: 'Yeah, I had my fair share of quidditch injuries. Mostly because Sirius could not keep the bludgers away from me.'

'Hey!' Sirius protested, 'You were the one who told us not to bother about you anymore when most teams started to focus both their beaters on you in fifth year.'

'Really?' Lily wondered and James raised his hands in defence: 'Hey, it worked. We never lost a match after that. And most of the time I managed to avoid the bludgers.'

Lily simply shook her head: 'Never take quidditch advice from your father Harry. And please don't do any more of those crazy stunts while I am watching. I feel like I aged twenty years… Not that Malfoy did not deserve it of course.'

Harry grinned: 'I'll try mum. But it was the only way to get rid of him, he was tailing me and he had a faster broom.'

Before Lily could reply Susan said: 'I thought it was brilliant! And the Gryffindor stands practically exploded after you did that.'

'Yeah.' Neville grinned, 'For a few minutes I thought I had gone deaf. But eventually some of my hearing returned. There is still a bit of a buzz in my right ear though.'

Harry smiled in return: 'Good to know. Oh, and thanks for the banner! It was great! Really helped me to get over my nerves.'

'Oh, yeah. Dean painted it, and Hermione added a few nice charms to make it float and change colours.' Neville replied.

Hermione blushed: 'Glad that I could help somehow.' Then she shook her head: 'I really do not understand why you guys get so excited about a sport that can put you in hospital.'

Nobody replied, but the incredulous looks of Harry, James, Sirius and Susan were answer enough. After a while Hermione raised her hands and said: 'Never mind.' Then she turned to Sirius and asked: 'Did you find out about the Gaunt family?'

Sirius nodded: 'Yeah, it died out. Although there are some rumours about the last daughter having an affair with a muggle. I am trying to find out if something happened there, but it is difficult. Still, even if she had a child it should be way too old to be in Hogwarts right now. In fact, unless she would have hidden in the muggle world for a long time before getting pregnant, it would be far older than us.' He pointed to himself and Harry's parents.

'So, the heir of Slyhterin is not a student?' Neville asked.

Sirius shook his head: 'There is no legal heir of Slytherin. Still, it is quite possible that there are some people walking around that are descendants of him. Either because of an affair of Slytherin or one of his offspring, or because of a squib kid. In those days squib kids were usually brought to a muggle orphanage and erased from the family documents. So for all we know Slytherin had a squib son or daughter who started a family, it is possible that magic showed up in that family again after one or more generations.'

'Does that mean I have a squib in my ancestry?' Hermione wondered.

Sirius shrugged: 'Possibly, but I did not mean that it is a necessary requirement for a kid to be born with magic. In fact, I do not think anyone really knows why some muggleborn kids have magic while most don't. But if you ever research your family tree and find one or more orphans with no last name a few centuries ago then they could be squibs. I think that it was only in the nineteenth century that purebloods started to try and raise their own squib kids.'

Hermione nodded, her eyes far away. Most likely she was already working out how she could investigate her family tree. Harry wondered why it would matter, but he knew full well that Hermione always wanted to know things.

Suddenly Sirius laughed his barking laugh: 'You know what else I found out when browsing through the family papers?'

Nobody answered and after a while he continued: 'The marriage contract of Lucius and Narcissa. There was quite a nice dowry involved, and some extra conditions.'

'What kind of conditions?' James asked.

'Well, basically… Lucius and Narcissa were supposed to get at least one daughter within fifteen years who could be wed to the main branch of the Black family eventually. In other words, to one of my kids… or more likely at that time, to one of Regulus' kids. Since they never had one I could annul their marriage if I wanted to.'

James grinned, Susan also smirked and Neville commented: 'I bet Draco would be upset by that.'

'Oh, in that case, please do it!' Harry added.

Sirius grinned: 'Nah, not yet. I save it for a while. Maybe I can use it as a bargaining chip sometime… You never know when things like that come in handy.'

They kept on talking about less important things for a while, like the fact that Remus was taking Tonks out for dinner in a few days, until Harry started to get tired. The others quickly said their goodbyes and James and Sirius promised to come watch the next game as well.

It was late at night when Harry woke up again. He heard someone approaching the hospital wing. Next moment he saw professor Dumbledore backing into the room. He was wearing a woolly nightgown and a night cap, but those long silver hairs would give his identity away in any outfit. He was carrying what looked like a statue. A second later professor Snape walked into the hospital wing as well, carrying the statue's feet. Together they heaved it onto an empty bed.

'Get madam Pomfrey.' Dumbledore whispered. Harry tried to lie as still as he could, pretending to be asleep. Seconds later he heard urgent voices from the hospitals office and then Snape returned, followed by madam Pomfrey who was pulling a cardigan over her night dress. He heard a sharp intake of breath: 'What happened?' She asked.

'Another attack.' Dumbledore replied solemnly, 'I found him on the stairs while I was on my way to the kitchens.'

'We think she was trying to sneak up to here to visit Potter.' Snape added, his tone rather disgusted, 'Most likely because of Malfoys actions after the match.'

Harry's stomach gave a horrible lurch. Slowly and carefully he tried to raise himself a few inches, which was difficult enough with his shoulder still covered in green sticky stuff. A ray of moonlight lay across the statues staring face, which was mostly hidden behind a bundle of flowers, but Harry still managed to make out her identity. It was Tracey Davis, her eyes were wide and her hands were stuck up in front of her, wrapped around the flowers like she tried to protect her face with them.

'Petrified again?' Pomfrey asked.

'Yes.' Dumbledore replied, 'But I shudder to think what happened if I had not interrupted the attack. Sadly, I did not see anything of the attacker.'

'Odd that the first victim of Slytherins monster is a Slytherin.' Snape whispered, and Harry tried to judge his tone, but it was difficult when the man spoke so softly. Then he reached towards Tracey and said: 'Let me remove those flowers, I don't want to know what my other students will say if they realize what she was doing.'

There was a soft crack and a soft curse from Snape. 'What happened?' Pomfrey asked.

Snape shook his head: 'Apparently the plastic of the flower wrapping got stuck in her eyebrows, I am afraid I broke a few of her hairs there. They will grow back soon enough as soon as Ponoma has her mandrakes ready though.'

'Yes. About that Severus, Lily suggested to simply buy some of them after the incident with Mrs. Norris. We all agreed that it would be a bit expensive simply to cure a cat, but now that a student is petrified…' Dumbledore mused, 'Can you look into it?'

'Of course.' Snape agreed, 'But mandrakes are very hard to get. Both because they are so difficult to grow and because nobody ever really uses them. I will contact my suppliers, but do not count on them having any mandrakes available.'

Dumbledore nodded: 'Still, it is worth trying. If only because Miss Davis might be able to tell us more about her attacker.'

'Quite so.' Snape agreed, 'I should probably go and inform Miss Greengrass about what happened, she needs to prepare.' And with that he walked out of the room.

Dumbledore simply shook his head and Pomfrey muttered something about the way Slytherin house functioned. Then the two of them walked into the hospitals office after Dumbledore conjured a vase next to Harry's bed and put the flowers into it. Harry kept staring to the ceiling for a long time before sleep finally overtook him again.

The next time he woke up it was to soft sniffing sounds. He pushed himself into a sitting position against the head of his bed and saw Daphne standing next to Tracey's bed with her back turned to Harry. He swallowed before he said: 'Hey Daphne.'

She quickly moved a handkerchief to her eyes before she turned around and said: 'Hey Harry. I did not mean to wake you up. Sorry about that.'

'No, it's okay.' Harry assured her, 'How is Tracey?'

Daphne shrugged helplessly: 'You know what happened tonight?' Harry nodded and she continued: 'Well, she is still the same I guess. According to professor Snape she will stay this way until he can get some full grown mandrakes.'

'I see.' Harry replied. He had no idea what to say. Eventually he came up with the rather lame: 'Are you okay?'

Daphne looked at him oddly: 'No I am not okay. Tracey is my only friend between the second year Slytherins, I am going to miss her a lot.' She hesitated for a few seconds: 'And I should have been with her tonight, maybe I could have helped her.'

'Did you know that she was out of the common room then?' Harry wondered.

'Not really.' Daphne replied, and then she explained: 'She was rather upset about Malfoy. As a half blood in Slytherin she never really had a warm welcome at Hogwarts. So she was very happy about the DA, and then one of our house attacks you… She wanted to apologize… make up to you. I did not know that she was trying to meet you this night, although she did mention something about avoiding crowds. I just should not have let her out of my eyes after that.'

She started to cry again and Harry quickly said: 'Oh come on, how could you have known what would happen? Beside that, more than likely the monster would have gotten both of you then. I know you are a good fighter, but against a monster that turns people into stone?'

Daphne shrugged helplessly: 'Maybe it would have been better if I was lying next to her now.'

Harry grimaced: 'What a Gryffindor thing to say.'

Daphne managed a brave little smile: 'Well, the sorting hat did mention Gryffindor to me. But I told it I wanted to be with Tracey. We have been friends for years you know.'

'Yeah, the silly thing mentioned Slytherin to me as well. I am not sure if it was serious though.' Harry replied with a grin. Daphne turned back to Tracey again and he continued: 'Anyway, you should not feel guilty about what happened to Tracey. It is not your fault in any way.'

She turned to him once more and softly asked: 'Are you sure?'

'Of course!' Harry replied and when he noticed that she still was not convinced he raised his arms to invite her for a hug. Well, he raised his right arm since the left one did not move due to the sticky green stuff.

Daphne hesitated for a few long seconds before she ran forward and carefully hugged him. He rather awkwardly patted her on the back a few times and said: 'If you need some friends while Tracey recovers just come talk with us okay?'

Daphne only nodded against his shoulder, which was getting rather wet and warm.

_A/N: I know I said I would stick to canon whenever possible. But somehow it did not really make sense to have Colin as the first victim (second if you count the cat). I am not even sure if I mentioned him until now, so it felt a bit odd to bring him in as first victim. Guess he is lucky in this timeline. Bad luck for Tracey though._

_And no rogue bludger this time around. I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing that Dobby is not trying to save Harry;)_

_Reviews (I am obviously not going to comment about who has the diary;)):_

_Snakefang93: A bit more happened this time;) Although I admit that the timeline is moving a lot slower again. _

_Teufel1987: it is a possibility I guess. Definitely one of the options that I am considering in solving the whole lack of parseltongue problem;)_

_Happylady, Rori Potter, Blue Luver5000: Thanks!_

_Acacia Rose Masen: Thanks! And nope, William only mentioned a monster. He did not go into details. I had to keep his foretellings a bit vague, otherwise the story would have been very boring after that. And I guess it is reasonable that he could not explain everything about the next seventeen years in a few hours._

_PoppiiD: I guess that does not really rule out if she was a lawyer or not? Not that it really matters to this story;)_

_Emarald777: Basically because she does not know that the chamber has been opened before. I think it was not that commonly known at the time that Lily attended Hogwarts. So I guess that once again Dumbledore is keeping his information a bit too close to himself._

_RRW: I am not sure if it works like that. I know that in the movies (and in the books I guess) the pensieve memories were basically depicted like they walked alongside the person whose memory it was in a perfect recollection of the important stuff. But in general there were only few people involved. I am not sure if anyone's memory would be detailed enough to do a reliable head count of four hundred students._

_Ruby2360: Maybe;)_

_ExclaCrystal: Yeah, I was trying to think of monsters that turned people into stone and Medusa actually fits rather nicely. Both with the eyes and the snakes around her head. _

_CK: It would be kinda funny if James and Harry started to talk with each other in parseltongue I guess. Especially the reactions of their friends. Not sure if I will be going that way though. _

_Nanettez: Hmm, I felt like he used that name every now and then. Could be my mistake though. And I changed Astoria's age a bit yeah, didn't I mention it? Luna did not have an older brother or sister to invite her for the DA summer camp. But she is with the DA now._

_Ookii Mamoru: Humm?_


	36. Transfiguration and chess

**Transfiguration and chess**

The next day Harry quickly told Susan, Hermione and Neville what had happened in the hospital wing. They were all shocked to hear about Tracey, and although Susan tried to tease him at first when she learned that the Slytherin girl had tried to bring him flowers she quickly stopped when Harry told her about how she entered the hospital. Which was a good thing, since Harry already felt a bit guilty about it. He knew that it was not his fault in any way, just like he told Daphne it was not her fault. But he could not stop feeling a little guilty anyway.

The news about the attack on Tracey had spread through the school by Monday morning, and suddenly the air was full of rumour and suspicion. Most people had simply shrugged when they heard about Mrs. Norris, but now that another student had been attacked there was an unmistakable air of excitement and panic. The first years only walked around in large groups, and even the older students barely were seen on their own anymore. Among all those rumours there was a lot of surprise that the first victim of the monster was actually a Slytherin. Apparently most of the students had deciphered the writings on the wall far enough to learn about Slytherins chamber of secrets and the monster that was supposedly hidden inside it. Or at least had heard other people talking about it. Still, many of them thought that something else was going on now, and especially the Slytherin students looked around with suspicion in their eyes. Although Harry needed to control himself when he overheard Draco Malfoy explaining to his friends Crabbe and Goyle that a halfblood like Tracey was hardly good enough for their house anyway. It was so tempting to try a few of the more combat oriented hexes and charms that they had learned during the DA sessions on the blond Slytherin at that time. But Susan was smart enough to pull him away while she herself was furiously muttering insults towards Malfoy. It was a good thing that Hermione had missed the comment, she and Tracey had gotten rather close during first year.

It was three days after the attack that Daphne first joined them in the library. She drifted over to them from a small group of Slytherins and joined the four of them at one of the more out of the way tables in the library. Quite hesitantly she asked: 'Are you sure that it is okay if I join?'

'Sure.' Harry smiled, 'We were just working on our transfiguration homework.'

'Oh, right.' She grimaced, 'I tried to start that yesterday. But I did not really get into it. I mean, I can do the spell… but the theoretical part has me baffled.'

'Same here.' Susan agreed, 'No clue why it matters anyway, as long as we know how to do the spell.'

'But theoretical understanding is very important as well.' Hermione protested, the other three all grinned at each other while Hermione started her usual 'theory is good' lecture. Daphne just looked surprised at Hermione's passionate reply. Eventually she shook her head and simply replied: 'Now I get why you and Tracey got along so well. She would totally agree with you, while I am tempted to agree with Susan. Still, I guess we will have to work it out for our homework anyway.'

They all agreed and soon enough the five of them were all browsing through thick transfiguration text books, debating everything they found. Of course Hermione was the leading voice and the one who first understood the whole mess of formulas and texts, but the others all had their own input in the discussion.

As soon as they were finished with transfiguration Hermione looked on her watch and said: 'Only an hour to curfew, I guess we might as well save charms for tomorrow night.'

'Thank Merlin.' Daphne muttered before she said: 'Can I join you again tomorrow? I had fun tonight.'

The four looked at each other until Neville replied: 'Sure I guess. Normally we do charms homework in the Gryffindor common room since we do not need that many books. But I am fine with heading to the library again.'

'Same here.' Susan agreed, 'The common room is too crowded now that nobody dares to go out anyway.'

With a huge sigh Daphne said: 'I can see that. Our common room was hell yesterday. Everybody kept talking about what happened and why they were sure that none of them would be attacked. They kept talking about Tracey like she was some kind of object that nobody really cared about… I fled to my dormitory after thirty minutes or so.'

'I was wondering…' Neville slowly replied, 'Do you know how many people knew that Tracey was going out alone?'

Daphne shrugged: 'As far as I know I was the only one who knew that she was planning something. And she did not even tell me when she was going, so I am quite sure she told nobody else about it. But I guess every Slytherin could have noticed her sneaking out of the common room.'

Hermione slapped a hand to her forehead: 'I am so stupid!' They all looked around to see if madam Pince was coming to investigate Hermione's sudden outburst. But soon they turned back to Hermione in wonder. She explained: 'I kept thinking of ways to infiltrate the Slytherin common room so we could ask Malfoy some questions. I was thinking about invisibility spells and polyjuice and things like that, I should simply have asked Daphne and Tracey instead.'

'Malfoy?' Daphne wondered, 'Why him?'

'Basically because how he reacted when Mrs. Norris was found. And because he had a reason to be angry the night after the match.' Harry replied. Then he shrugged helplessly: 'We know he is a bit too obvious a candidate, but we figured it was worth looking into.'

Daphne shrugged: 'I admit that Tracey and I usually tried to ignore Malfoy-'

'Quite understandable.' Susan interrupted dryly, but Daphne simply continued: 'But I can hardly see him being the heir of Slytherin and not bragging about it. I could try and keep an eye on him I guess…' She nodded to Harry, 'Although with all the detentions that your mother gave him after the match I do not think we will see much of him in the common room.'

Hermione frowned: 'What about earlier in the year? Did he act suspicious somehow?'

Daphne snorted: 'He is a Slytherin, of course he acted suspicious. But as I said, we never paid that much attention to him.'

They all nodded, although none of them really understood the inner workings of Slytherin house. Eventually Harry said: 'Well, if you could try and keep an eye on him that would be great. So far he is our only suspect.'

Daphne frowned at that, but eventually she said: 'I guess it won't hurt. But I do not think Malfoy will be involved, he is too well-known.'

'Yeah, we thought the same.' Hermione admitted, 'In fact, I have the feeling that if it is actually the chamber of secrets it should be one of the first years who opens it. After all, other students could have opened the chamber in earlier years. But I have no clue which first years would be likely candidates. They all seem normal enough.'

Daphne smiled: 'A while ago I worked with a Ravenclaw first year in the DA. I do not want to imply that she has anything to do with it, but I would not call her normal… I forgot her name, something with an L I think…'

'Luna Lovegood.' Harry replied with a grin. He had also worked with the odd Ravenclaw a few times and had really enjoyed himself. 'We noticed her as well, but according to Ginny Weasley she was always a bit odd. And my mother said that her family is a bit extraordinary.'

'Ah.' Daphne nodded, 'Well, other than that I do not have a clue. I'll ask Astoria though. Maybe she has some ideas.'

'Sounds good.' Harry agreed, 'How does she like Hogwarts anyway?'

Daphne smiled and started a long description about Astoria's Hogwarts adventures. Apparently she was scared of the monster but very enthusiastic about the DA. Eventually they had to leave the library though, curfew was getting too close and they first had to walk to the Slytherin common room with Daphne before the four of them could go back to their own room.

— Six weeks later —

Strangely enough life at Hogwarts was almost back to normal by now. Although Snape had been unable to acquire any mandrake, so Tracey was still in the hospital wing as a visible reminder that something was amiss. But Daphne was her only regular visitor, although Harry and the others had accompanied her a few times. The blond Slytherin girl had proven herself to be a good friend. And it was nice to have a different perspective in the group, Harry had noted that the four of them tended to use some of the Gryffindor prejudices. Still, even with Daphne's help they still had no idea about who might be behind the attacks. They were watching the marauders map as often as they could, but they had not learned anything useful from it. Although Susan dryly commented that Parvati would kill for such a useful gossiping tool. It was amazing how busy the Hogwarts broom cupboards were. However, it did not really bother them.

They just hoped that Remus and James would finish their even more improved marauders map soon. They were trying to add a recording function to it, but after more than a month of trial and error their progress was still close to none. They had actually approached the Weasley twins to help them out. Quite a few eyebrows were raised when the two redheads were found behind large piles of books in the library. They had been a bit more studious this year, but this was way out of their normal behaviour.

Although most people tried to ignore the statue-like Slytherin second year in the hospital wing it was clear to see that tensions were running high. Only yesterday Harry and Neville had needed to interfere in a duel at the DA, something that had never happened before. But Ron Weasley and Justin Finch-Fletchley had been using way to cruel hexes against each other. When Neville asked what their problem was both had looked away uneasily. Harry somewhat wondered where Justin had learned his spells, as far as he knew Justin was a muggleborn after all. He had copied down the names and movements though. None of them seemed really useful in a fight, they were more humiliating in nature, but you never knew when they would come in handy.

It was a good thing that today's herbology lesson had been cancelled. Professor Sprout had to fit socks and scarves to the mandrakes. Only Neville was with her right now, he had asked permission to watch and professor Sprout had been more than happy to have one of her best students with her. They shared the class with the Hufflepuffs, and everybody thought it was a good idea for Ron and Justin to avoid each other until after the Christmas break which would start tomorrow anyway.

Harry was using the unexpected break to play a match of wizards chess against Susan. He had made a few mistakes at the start though, and now he was losing spectacularly. It was a good thing that Hermione was too engrossed in her book to notice, she was curled up in one of the comfortable chairs near the fireplace in the common room and was pretty much blind to the world right now. Harry, on the other hand, was more than happy when a distraction walked through the portrait hole. 'Hey Ron, where have you been?'

Ron studied the chess board for a few seconds before he replied: 'Oh, I tried to find Justin.'

'What for?' Susan wondered while moving a pawn forward. Harry almost missed Rons reply because he tried to work out what her plan was. But he paid just enough attention to see the redhead shrug before he replied: 'I figured I should say sorry to him. Yesterday was…. Well, maybe not all my fault, but not all his fault either. And well, normally I get along quite well with the Puffs, so I thought I should talk with him before the break.'

'Nice of you.' Susan smiled while Harry moved his knight. He just hoped the smile had nothing to do with his move, 'What did he say?'

Harry groaned when Susans bishop mercilessly took his tower. Ron chuckled softly before he said: 'Nothing, I could not find him. There were some Puffs in the library, but they had no idea where he was. I'll try again at dinner I guess.'

'Good idea.' Harry replied, 'Feel like giving me some advice in the meantime? I am getting slaughtered.'

'That is unfair!' Susan protested, 'Don't you dare to help him Ron.'

Ron raised his hands in defence and grinned: 'Sorry mate, you are on your own here.'

'Coward.' Harry grumbled before moving his queen forward to take one of Susans pawns. 'Ah well, at least I will lose in style then.'

However, his defeat was delayed when Neville practically ran through the portrait hole. He skipped to a stop just in front of them and gasped: 'There was another attack!'

'What? Who?' All four of them shouted in surprise. Even Hermione had noticed Neville's approach. Neville replied: 'Justin and Nearly Headless Nick! Both petrified! Professor Sprout and I found them on our way to here. She sent some odd silvery creatures away and suddenly professors Dumbledore and McGonagall showed up. The two of them brought Justin and Nick to the hospital wing while professor Sprout escorted me to here.' He looked thoughtful for a few seconds before he added: 'Professor McGonagall created a huge magical fan to blow Nick forward, it looked odd.'

'Wait… Nick was petrified?' Hermione asked. Neville nodded: 'Yes, although he was still floating somehow. But he was all black and smoky.'

Hermione frowned: 'What can harm a ghost? At least that makes sure there is a monster involved though, I do not think there are any spells that can transfigure a ghost like that.'

Ron looked very white when he whispered: 'And I thought the monster was gone. Blimey! I was walking around the hallways on my own, that could have been me?'

They all nodded and agreed with Ron, but Harry was sure that he was not the only one who noticed that Ron had been walking around on his own while Mrs. Norris was attacked as well. And to make things worse, this time the victim just had been in a fight with Ron as well. A few seconds later Ron said: 'I am going to see if Ginny is alright, see you later.'

It was just in time, because suddenly Harry's mirror heated up. He quickly looked around and saw that the common room was deserted, so he pulled his mirror necklace out of his shirt and engorged the mirror. His mothers face showed up and she immediately asked: 'Harry, are you and the others alright?'

'Yes mum.' Harry quickly replied, 'We are in the common room at the moment. Herbology was canceled.'

She nodded in reply: 'I noticed, as you know I was watching the map… But I just wanted to know.'

'Did you see what happened?' Harry hurriedly asked.

Lily shook her head: 'Not really, I noticed that Justin and Nick were standing in that corridor for a while. But I figured they were talking. I know quite sure that no one else joined them until Neville and Pomona found them, so I can only guess that someone sent the monster towards them. I am going to borrow Albus' pensieve later and see what I can find out. Anyway, I have to go talk with the other teachers now. Stay safe! I will contact you again tonight.'

Harry nodded but before he could say anything his mothers face returned. He looked at the others and asked: 'Could you all hear her?'

Hermione and Susan nodded in reply, and Neville said: 'Let's hope the pensieve will work out.'

The others could only agree to that. But later that night they were disappointed. During dinner Daphne walked past them to tell that Malfoy had missed his history class, which was at the same time as their own herbology class. And although Malfoy seemed to miss history on a regular basis they all suddenly were sure that Lily would name Malfoy as the likely subject.

She did not though. Or at least, Malfoy was only one out of eight names who had been close enough to the duo. Not surprisingly Ron Weasley was one of the others. Another name that Harry recognized was that of Luna Lovegood. The first year Ravenclaws had also enjoyed a free period since their flying class was cancelled due to the blizzard outside, and she had been wandering around the hallways. The other five were all fifth and sixth years, of them he only knew Elisa Baker. The girl that had decided not to compete against him during the quidditch try-outs. He simply nodded when Hermione explained how they should check if those eight people had alibi's for the first two attacks. But he was afraid it would not be that easy, after all they were still not sure if Malfoy had been at the Halloween feast. Still, he guessed it was better than doing nothing.

_A/N: And another one done. I am going to be happy when second year is done, it is a tough one to write about. Too much things going on when you do not want to spend thirty chapters on the year._

_Reviews:_

_Naruhinafan86: Yeah, I noticed the scarhead just before seeing your review, but it seems I was just to slow to edit it;) And no, Harry got a Nimbus 2000 in my story. James went shopping a bit too early._

_Happylady, Mwinter1, Blue Luver5000, PurpleBullet, Rori Potter, Ruby2360: Thanks!_

_Readr4evr: First there is third year I guess, which will offer me a lot of freedom since the main plot line of canon is not going to happen this time._

_Acacia Rose Masen:__ I think that Harry's regular visits to the hospital wing after quidditch are a law of nature, not something that can be changed so easily;) It did not really make sense to me to have Colin trying to visit Harry at night after not mentioning him at all so far. _

_Teufel1987: Tracey is a half-blood though, so maybe she buys her flowers in the muggle world. I was more worried about how she would get them into Hogwarts, but I guess she also has a house elf or so. _

_Lily's family descending from some old parselmouth squib is still an option. Although I guess it will be almost impossible to prove it in a logical way… After all, I think most 'normal' families can trace their ancestry for five or six generations easily enough. But Slytherin lived a thousand years or around forty generations ago… Let alone Herpo the foul;)_

_Mikalik87: I pretty much based it on what happened in the last movie with the wards of Hogwarts. And anyway, how many people really survived a direct fight with Voldemort?_

_Snakefang93:_ _Hmm, good point about the prophecy. I guess it does not really make sense for him to wait until fifth year._

_MAFITA: Yeah, I am not really in the 'Draco is nice' camp;) _

_And good to know that you are still wondering about the diary._


	37. Cards and classes

**Cards and classes**

The Christmas break was a lot less fun this year. Remus and James had practically pulled Lily into her study room to help them with the recording function for the marauders map. Harry only saw his parents and Remus around the meals and sometimes in the evening, so it was a good thing that his friends came over a few times. Still, even when they visited they only talked about the monster and the chamber of secrets. Of course, they had no new information so they kept repeating the same arguments to each other. All of them were tempted to think that Ron was innocent, but they had to admit that it was odd that he had been wandering around the hallways on his own while two of the attacks happened. It was a shame that Neville had not noticed if Ron had been in the dormitory while Tracey was attacked.

All their parents were concerned about the same subject, and so Christmas day at Longbottom manor was a rather subdued affair. All together Harry was not really sorry when they had to return to Hogwarts. At least classes and homework would provide some distraction. He had tried to read and do quidditch practice again, just like last year, but it was difficult to concentrate while on your own. His mother apparently also was glad that she could go back to her lessons; Harry heard her apologizing to both James and Remus that she had to go again.

They had very little to show for all the effort that the three of them had invested during the holiday. But a few days into the new year Jack Granger had visited, he had listened to the description of their efforts at Christmas and now suggested simply putting the map in front of a video camera. Remus had immediately apparated towards a nearby muggle village to buy one and they had done a few tests. Apparently the magic of the map was too strong and the video tape only showed very blurry pictures. But at least James and Remus had a new direction for their research. They were still debating if it would be better to 'magic-proof' a muggle video camera or if they should device a magical recording device. In the meanwhile they agreed that whoever manned the central mirror also had 'map-looking duty', but Remus immediately cautioned that it was unlikely to be good enough. After all, Lily had been looking at the map while Justin was attacked and they still did not know who was responsible for it.

— Six weeks later —

Back at school the atmosphere was still quite downhearted. But still, without any new attacks or new clues time flew by pretty quickly due to the routine of lessons and homework. Only halfway February did something unusual happen. Harry and the others were just eating breakfast when Hedwig, Harry's snowy owl, entered the great hall together with the other owls. This in itself was not unusual, since Hedwig liked to come and say hello to Harry every now and then, but this time she was carrying a light red envelope. Since Harry always used his mirror to talk with his parents he never really sent or received messages by owl, which meant that Hedwig had a lot of free time. Still, she looked rather proud when she gave him the letter and Harry just had to pet her a bit and feed her some bacon while ignoring the letter.

It was Susan who asked: 'Shouldn't you open the letter Harry?'

Harry shrugged: 'Sure, in a moment. I'll need to pay attention to Hedwig every now and then you know.' The owl proudly ruffled her feathers when Harry said her name.

Susan chuckled: 'Such a boy thing to pay more attention to an owl than to a card.'

'Card? How do you know there is a card inside?' Harry wondered.

'Well, I do not really know it for sure of course. But what else would you expect today?' When she saw Harry's puzzled look she added: 'Oh come on, don't you know what date it is?'

Harry frowned and wondered if he had missed a birthday somehow. But then, if the card was sent to him that would only make sense if it was his own. And he was quite sure that his birthday was not in February. 'It is the fourteenth, right?' Susan nodded and after a few seconds Harry realized: 'Oh wait, valentines day?' He controlled himself just in time before backing away from the card like it was some kind of scary bug. Who on earth would send him a valentine card?

'Well, duh.' Susan smiled, 'Come on, open it!' Next to her Hermione also seemed rather interested in the card, while Neville seemed just as surprised as Harry.

After a few seconds Harry reluctantly reached for the envelop. He turned it over to see if there was a name on it, but although his own name was written on the front there was no sign of the sender. This of course was part of the idea with valentine. He opened the envelop and pulled a sturdy light brown card out of it. On the front were two roses whose stems circled around each other. After a few seconds Harry opened the card, but the only words inside where 'from a secret admirer'.

'Well, that does not really make sense.' Harry commented while showing the words to his friends, 'How on earth am I supposed to know who sent it now?'

'That is part of the fun Harry.' Hermione replied while studying the words like they had a deeper meaning, 'You mean that you have no idea?'

Harry shrugged: 'Nope. Could be anyone.'

'Maybe it was Filch; I've seen him looking at you sometimes.' Seamus helpfully suggested from his other side. He glared at his dorm mate before handing the card to Parvati who seemed ready to snatch it out of his hands anyway. Next to her Lavender also dived forward to study it while she asked: 'Come on Harry, you must have some idea. Don't you recognize the handwriting or something?'

'No.' Harry simply replied. He thought it over for a few seconds, he had to admit that he would like to know who sent the card as well. Eventually he added: 'But I guess I would only recognize Susans or Hermione's handwriting anyway. So that does not really help.'

Hermione looked thoughtful: 'I am sure there is a hint in the card somewhere… I mean, why send it if there was no way to find out who you are?' After a few seconds she added: 'Maybe the roses? Did any girl ever give you roses? Or talk to you about them?'

'I still don't see why it has to be a girl. Filch could like roses.' Seamus interrupted, but no one really paid attention to him. Instead they all looked at Harry, who uncomfortably shifted on his seat a bit. Eventually he said: 'No, I don't think so. Well, Tracey tried to bring me some flowers while I was in the hospital… No roses though, and of course we can be sure it wasn't her.'

That pretty much killed the debate. Harry used the silence to look around the great hall, trying to see if any girl was looking at him. But no one was that obvious. In fact, the only one who seemed to pay him any attention was his mother. For a few seconds he wondered if she was pranking him, but he quickly reasoned that it was not really her style. It would be different if his father or Sirius was sitting at the head table. Most likely his mother just wanted to know who had sent the card to Harry. She was not alone in that, Harry dryly commented to himself while scanning the great hall once again.

— Six weeks later —

At the start of the Easter holiday Harry still had no idea who had sent him a valentine card. And, a bit more important, they also still did not know who was behind the attacks. Although a few weeks ago Lily had told them that Remus and James had finally adapted a video camera to work around magical artifacts, so they were videotaping one of the marauders maps at Lionfire Hall twenty-four hours a day now. This saved everybody else from wasting hours of time looking at the map themselves.

But right now they had another thing to consider. After the last transfiguration class before the Easter holidays McGonagall had handed lists to all her Gryffindor second years. Apparently, they had to choose some extra subjects for next year. There were five subjects on the list; arithmancy, ancient runes, divination, care for magical creatures and muggle studies. And they had to choose two or three. Still, none of them really knew what the five subjects were about, although Harry was reasonably sure that he did not need muggle studies after spending several years on a muggle ground school.

After a long period of fruitless debating he stood up and said: 'I'm going to ask my mother for advice.'

'That's a great idea!' Hermione replied while also standing up, 'I am coming too.'

Neville and Susan also joined and soon enough the four of them walked into Lily's office. She smiled at them and pushed a large stack of paper to the side of the desk before conjuring a few simple chairs: 'Nice to see you four. I really like teaching so far, but I hate correcting home work.'

Neville looked at the huge stack of paper in shock: 'What year is that?'

'Fifth.' Lily replied and when she realised why Neville wanted to know she added: 'OWL years asks for some very large essays. But you still have a few years before you get there.'

'That's why we are here.' Harry replied, and when Lily looked at him in wonder he added: 'We have to choose our elective subjects for next year.'

Lily slapped a hand to her forehead: 'Of course, I totally forgot about it. So, what subject are you going to pick?'

Harry shrugged: 'We are not sure yet. Although I figured muggle studies would not really be useful to me.'

'I was thinking about taking it though.' Susan added.

Lily nodded: 'I think it would be a nice subject for you and Neville. Both of you grew up in the pureblood world and it would be a good thing to learn about the bigger world. But Hermione and Harry know enough about it already.' She looked thoughtful for a few seconds before she continued: 'I guess it would be best to pick the subjects that would help you in your career. But I am not sure if any of you already knows what you want to be after Hogwarts?'

The four kids all looked at each other in turn. After a while Neville hesitantly said: 'I want to do something with herbology I think.'

Lily nodded and replied: 'Then muggle studies might actually be useful for you. Muggles have their own libraries and universities with a lot of information about plants and trees. Of course, they do not know about magical plants, but I am sure they have some interesting information if you'd only learn how to use a computer.'

'A what?' Neville asked, but then he shook his head and continued: 'And beside that? I think we need two or three subjects.'

Lily hesitated: 'I am not sure. Maybe care for magical creatures? It is not really about herbology, but it will help you to get a broader view of the magical environment… or maybe arithmancy to work out formulas on how to use the magical properties of plants? Maybe you should ask your parents as well though, they might have better ideas.'

Neville unconsciously grabbed the mirror under his shirt and nodded: 'Thanks, I will do that.'

'Maybe I should do the same.' Susan frowned: 'I want to do something in the ministry, just like aunt Amelia. Although I do not think the DMLE is really my thing. I like the training in the DA, and I am ready to stand next to you guys when it is needed, but I do not really see myself catching dark wizards for the rest of my life.'

Harry grinned: 'Yeah, I can see that. As soon as Voldemort is gone I'd happily leave the next dark lord for somebody else.'

Lily smiled at him but first replied to Susan: 'I think Amelia is definitely the person to talk to if you are thinking about entering the ministry Susan. And Harry, it is not like you always have a choice. Both James and I always thought we would leave the auror corps and head our own way after Voldemort was gone. But then the prophecy happened.'

With a frown Harry realized that he had never thought about what his parents actually wanted. They seemed to be enjoying themselves most of the time, but it was unlikely that their current existence as a sort of magical researchers and fighters would have been their first choice. He asked: 'What would you have done? If you had the chance I mean?'

'I wanted to go into magical research. You know? Devising new spells and things like that.' Lily grinned: 'And James always wanted to go for professional quidditch. In fact, I am sure that if Voldemort somehow dies tomorrow James would be celebrating for a day or so and then he would go and see if Puddlemere United needed him. They did ask him during our seventh year, you know?'

Harry shook his head, his father had never mentioned that to him. After a short silence he said: 'Professional quidditch sounds great, although I am not sure if I am good enough.'

Next to him Susan snorted and Neville dryly replied: 'If you are not good enough they might as well cancel professional quidditch altogether. They won't find any new players.'

Lily smiled again: 'James and Sirius keep telling me you could reach the national team. Still, it would be smart to have a backup option if quidditch does not work out. What else do you like?'

Harry thought about it for a while. He had to admit that he had focused on his upcoming fight with Voldemort and had never really thought about what would happen after he killed that monster. Eventually he said: 'I am not sure. But I really like magic… you know, studying how spells work and how you can use them in different ways. So maybe magical research would work for me too?'

Now Lily simply beamed at him: 'Well, in that case you should definitely take ancient runes and arithmancy. And even if it turns out that magical research is not really your thing those two subjects give you a good basis for many other options. They might even help you with your current problems.' After a short silence where clearly nobody wanted to touch the subject of Voldemort she added, 'It is the same with the other subjects by the way. So, what about you Hermione?'

Hermione shrugged: 'I am not sure to be honest. I would like to be able to help people, so maybe a healer… But then, I felt it was a shame that the wizarding world does not have lawyers for poor people… So maybe I should try and be a lawyer.'

'Both are tough subjects that would require a lot of extra study after Hogwarts.' Lily slowly replied, but when she saw Hermione shrug she smiled again: 'I should have known that would not bother you. I guess that if you want to be a healer you should take arithmancy and ancient runes as well.'

'Then I'd share classes with Harry again.' Hermione smiled.

Lily nodded: 'That's true. But those subjects would not really help you if you picked law in the end. Although, to be fair, neither would the others. So it might be your best choice. Maybe you should also ask your parents for advice though.'

Hermione looked confused: 'But they do not know a thing about arithmancy or the other subjects.'

'True.' Lily agreed, 'But if you told them that you are thinking about either becoming a healer or a lawyer they might help you with that. Beside that, I think they would really appreciate it if you asked them for help on something like this.'

'Oh, of course.' Hermione nodded, 'Why did you only offer two subjects to Harry and Neville? I mean, we are allowed to pick three, and I was actually wondering if I can not do all five.'

Lily laughed: 'I wanted to do that when I was in second year, but I was only allowed three. That was hard enough though, and since you guys still have the DA and all that to worry about I would really advice taking only two electives.'

'Ah, I see.' Hermione nodded thoughtfully, 'Well, I guess I go and talk with my parents then.'

'Of course.' Lily replied, 'I think all of you should. You as well Harry, talk to James I mean. It would be unfair if you only heard my opinion about this.'

They all agreed and quickly walked back to the Gryffindor common room. Once there they all found a quiet spot and contacted their parents. It took James almost a minute to reply with a: 'Hey, sorry about the wait Harry. I was just ehm… visiting the smallest room, and I figured you would have called your mother or mask if it was an emergency.'

Harry grinned: 'It's alright. I just wanted to ask you something.'

James looked surprised: 'Sure, about what?'

'Well, we have to pick our subjects for next year.'

James grinned: 'Ah, and you wanted some advice from the old man? Nice!'

Harry grinned back at him: 'Well, I already asked mum of course.' James predictably pouted and Harry continued: 'But I wanted your opinion as well. What do you think I should do?'

James shrugged: 'It depends on what you want to do after Hogwarts I guess.'

Once again Harry explained about quidditch and magical research. And after James finally stopped his excited rant about Harry playing professional quidditch he suddenly turned serious and asked: 'Are you sure you are not just naming the things that your mother and I wanted to do when we were young?'

Harry hesitated. The thought had crossed his mind. Eventually he replied: 'I do not think so. I really love quidditch. And magic is fascinating. Beside that, I have no idea what else I want to do.'

With a frown James replied: 'I see. Most kids your age want to be an auror when they grow up I think.'

Harry shrugged: 'Well, I don't. I mean, I like what we are doing with the DA. And I want to be able to defend myself. But I just do not really see myself hunting dark wizards for the rest of my life you know. After Voldemort is gone I'd rather focus on something fun.'

'That makes sense I guess.' James admitted, 'Well, there are no subjects that really work for quidditch. So I guess it makes sense to focus on your other option for now. Lily advised arithmancy and ancient runes?'

Harry simply nodded in reply and James looked thoughtful for a while: 'Well, I can not disagree. Care for magical creatures is a fun class, but it is not really going to help you. And you never really seemed to be the type that wanted to work with animals anyway.' Harry nodded in agreement and James continued: 'And most likely you know more about muggles than the muggle studies professor, so never mind that one. And divination is a waste of time anyway.'

Harry frowned: 'What about the prophecy.'

James chuckled: 'Sorry, I should have said: divination is a waste of time if you do not have the gift. You know that Dumbledore scored an outstanding in divination and still totally misinterpreted the prophecy? If you do not have the gift it is a waste of a class. Easy mark to get though, so if you feel overwhelmed by your current subjects already it might be a good idea to take divination instead of runes or arithmancy.'

Harry hesitated for a few seconds. It was true that he sometimes felt that he had barely enough hours in a day. But eventually he said: 'I am sure I can do it. Beside that, those two subjects might be useful against Voldemort as well, right?'

James shrugged: 'I guess so. They are a bit too theoretical to be of direct use in a duel. But they might very well help you out in other situations.' Then he beamed: 'But who really cares, my son is going to be a great seeker anyway! I can't wait to see you fly for Pride of Portree.'

Harry grinned: 'If I am really that good I might as well go for a real team like Puddlemere United.'

'What?' James sputtered, 'You have a lot to learn young padawan!'

'And you have watched too many muggle movies since you got that video system running.' Harry grinned, catching the reference from one of the movie nights at Hermione's place from before Hogwarts.

James shrugged: 'Sirius makes me do it.'

'Yeah, right. Anyway, I should go. It's almost time for dinner.' Harry replied.

'Alright then.' James replied, 'Just make sure to consider your subjects a bit more and then pick a few. They are important, but it is not like they will determine your future or something. If you do not pick care for magical creatures and want to work with them after Hogwarts anyway you will just have to do an extra course after school.'

'Thanks. Goodbye dad.' Harry smiled before swiping his hand over the mirror to break the connection. He was glad that his parents had helped him out a bit, somehow he was quite sure that he would have never thought of picking out arithmancy and ancient runes by himself.

_A/N: Bit of a time passing chapter. But not much really happens between Christmas and the chamber in canon as well. So I just picked a few moments and worked on those. Next chapter will see a lot more action :D_

_So, to reviews again. Only eight this time._

_Teufel1987: Oh yeah, now you put it like that it sounds really simple! ;) I am okay with having land mines or a video camera in the magical world, but I am not sure if extended genetic research really has a spot in my fanfiction (if only because I do not know enough about it :D)_

_Maybe a stupid question, but don't you need a DNA samples of your supposed many times grandmother to test if you are related? I mean, if Lily's or Harry's DNA was tested you need to compare it to someone else to see if there is a relation I think? And with the last known descendants of Slytherin already dead and buried that would be difficult to proof I guess? Well, besides digging up the bodies…_

_And the same thing with finding the 'parcelmouth' gene. Don't you need samples of known parcelmouths? And with Voldemort unlikely to cooperate I am not sure where they would find them._

_MAFITA: Good to hear that you are thinking about it. And I think I found some solutions for both finding the bathroom and opening the gates. I just hope that you and the others will appreciate my solutions :P _

_The Dark Lord Potter: It could happen. But there are several other candidates as well. All I am willing to say about it right now is that Harry won't end up with an OC._

_Frodo: What was clumsy? The whole chapter? I am more than happy with suggestions about how I could have handled that;)_

_Blue Luver5000: I can't really think of a reason why that fight would not have happened in this timeline. But it is a bit late in the story to have Ron bragging about it…_

_Snowball1982: You're welcome!_

_Mwinter1: Thanks, good to know._

_Acacia Rose Masen: Your question will be answered next chapter. But good catch about Harry not hearing the voice. He probably was not close enough during any of the attacks so far though._


	38. Inside the chamber of secrets

**Inside the chamber of secrets**

It was the morning of Gryffindors second quidditch match of the season. And this time around Harry felt a lot less nervous, he was not sure if it was because this was his second game or because this time the opposing team did not have seven Nimbus 2001s. Still, he simply chuckled when Wood started piling scrambled eggs on his plate. Meanwhile the older boy was enthusiastically talking: 'Perfect quidditch conditions! Harry, buck up there! You need a decent breakfast!'

While Harry started digging through the mountain of scrambled eggs Hermione bemusedly asked: 'I sometimes think that Wood takes quidditch much too serious.'

'How can you take quidditch too serious?' Susan wanted to know. To her surprise it was Harry who replied: 'Wait until you have a captain that wants you to practice four times a week during the last few weeks before a match.'

'Fair enough.' Susan grinned, 'Anyway, ready to show those Hufflepuffs who is the best seeker at Hogwarts?'

Harry shrugged: 'I am not sure about that; I only played one match so far.'

Susan actually looked affronted at this and spent the rest of the meal explaining how the Hufflepuff seeker had lost to Malfoy in the last game. Apparently that made it clear enough that Harry would easily win today. Harry did not feel like arguing the point, he simply finished his breakfast quickly so the four of them could leave the Great Hall a bit before the other students. He still had to go back to the dormitory to get his quidditch things after all.

However, only a few steps after they left the great hall Harry suddenly stopped walking and stared at the wall. 'Did you hear that?'

'Hear what?' Hermione asked while following Harry's eyes. 'The wall?'

Harry beckoned for silence, but when more students started to leave the great hall he gave up and shrugged: 'I must have imagined it.'

'What did you hear then?' Neville wanted to know.

He hesitated, not sure how to explain. But eventually he said: 'I don't know, it was like I heard movement… You know? Like something was pushing itself against the stones.'

'That is impossible. Those walls are massive, even if someone smashed a bludger against the other side you would not hear it.' Susan replied.

'Well, they can't all be massive.' Hermione argued, 'After all there have to be-' She interrupted herself and turned very white. After a few seconds she stuttered: 'Oh my… I can not believe it… I have to go to the library!'

She started to run but Neville immediately snatched her arm. She looked back at him with a hurt expression but Neville did not let go. Instead he said: 'You know we are supposed to stay together. And Harry has to hurry for his match by now. Can't it wait?'

Hermione looked doubtful for a few seconds but then she forcefully shook her head and pulled her arm free: 'I am sorry, but I have to check this. Look, I follow those Ravenclaws.' She pointed to a small group of Ravenclaw students, Harry did not know any of them. Which meant that they were not in the DA and likely upper years. 'And I'll make sure to find another group to join when I head to the quidditch field. Good luck Harry!' And she ran away.

The other three looked at each other in wonder. Eventually Harry said: 'Well, I guess we will see her at the pitch. And I should hurry by now, it is almost eleven. They ran towards the boy dormitories and then joined the throng of students that was heading towards the pitch. Harry was so late that he only caught the last few sentences of Woods pre-match pep talk. But he was dressed and ready to go in time to join the others when they left the changing rooms.

Wood immediately jumped into the air for a quick warm-up flight. But Harry and most of the others stayed on the ground for a few seconds and stared at the Hufflepuff team. They were gathered in a tight group and were obviously having a last minute tactics discussion. Harry focused on their seeker, a tall dark haired girl. As much as he hated to admit it to himself the girl was a lot bigger and most likely heavier than him. Which meant that he'd better avoid close contact snitch hunts. She was only flying a Cleansweep nine though, so she would not be able to tail him like Malfoy tried during his last match.

He was just mounting his broom when he noticed professor McGonagall running onto the field. She was carrying a large purple megaphone and suddenly Harry felt his heart dropping like a stone. He was not even really surprised when McGonagall shouted: 'This match has been cancelled!'

There were boos and shouts from the stands, and Wood came down and ran towards the professor without even dismounting his broom. She simply ignored his protests and continued to shout: 'All students should head back to their dormitories, where their heads of houses will give them more information. As quickly as you can, please.'

Then she lowered the megaphone and beckoned to Harry: 'Potter, I think you'd better come with me.'

Harry's heart dropped even lower. He would swear it was near his toes now. As soon as he joined with his head of house Susan and Neville showed up at his side. McGonagall looked at them for a few seconds before she nodded: 'Yes, the two of you should come as well.'

They followed her through the mass of students, which seemed evenly divided between grumbling about the match being cancelled and looking worried. Eventually they reached the doors of the hospital wing. Professor McGonagall breathed deeply before she said: 'This might come as a bit of a shock.' She moved to the doors. 'There has been another attack… Another _double _attack.'

They followed her inside and saw madam Pomfrey standing over a curly haired Ravenclaw girl. On the bed next to her was- 'Hermione!' Neville cried out.

It was hardly a surprise. A part of Harry had known what happened as soon as he saw the professor running to the field. But it was still a terrible shock to see one of his best friends like that.

'They were found near the library.' Professor McGonagall explained to them. 'I don't suppose any of you can explain this? It was found next to them…'

She was holding up a small circular mirror. For a second Harry thought it was Hermione's magical mirror, but it seemed to be a normal one instead. So he just shook his head in denial, just like Neville and Susan did next to him. They watched Hermione for a bit longer while madam Pomfrey assured them that Hermione would be right as rain again as soon as the mandrakes were ready. Eventually professor McGonagall said: 'I will escort you to your common room. I need to address the students in any case.'

They followed her and barely listened to the speech that she gave to the students. It mostly meant that none of the students were allowed to walk the hallways without a teacher anymore. After a short while the professor left the common room and anxious discussions erupted all over the place. Harry and the others quickly answered some questions about Hermione, but they could not say much more then that she was petrified and that madam Pomfrey said she would be alright again.

Soon the three of them left for the boys dormitory for a private discussion, but before they even were seated Harry's mirror warmed up. He pulled it out of his shirt and enlarged it to see his mothers worried face: 'Harry! Are you alright?'

'More or less.' Harry shrugged, 'What about you?'

'Furious at myself.' Lily replied. 'I feel like I am a failure as a defence teacher. I can't even protect my students.' Harry wanted to protest, but his mother continued: 'Listen, I thought it would be nice to be together this day. Do you think the three of you could come to my office?'

'We are not supposed to walk the hallways without an escorting teacher anymore.' Neville replied before Harry could say anything.

'Of course.' Lily nodded, 'Give me five minutes and I will be at the portrait hole. Maybe you should use your cloak while heading out Harry. Just to be sure.'

'But… maybe you should not walk the halls on your own as well mum.' Harry objected. But Lily grinned fiercely and her eyes actually lighted up in fury when she said: 'Believe me, if that monster knows what is good for him he will avoid me. I am angry enough to tear it apart with my bare hands if I have to.'

'Alright, I think the three of us will fit under the cloak.' Harry simply replied. He was not sure if it would help, but the idea of being with his mother today sounded good.

— At Lionfire Hall —

James was nervously pacing around the library while Remus had buried himself into a pile of monster books once more, although it was unlikely that he would be more successful in determining what kind of monster was hidden at Hogwarts this time. A few hours ago Lily had quickly updated them about what had happened on Hogwarts today. He was still shocked to hear about Hermione being petrified, and he was tempted to contact any apothecary he could think of for full grown mandrake plants. But although he still was not sure if he would ever like Severus Snape he at least respected the man's abilities as a potioneer, and he knew it was unlikely that he would succeed where Snape had failed. After his fiftieth circle or so Remus spoke up: 'You could help me instead of destroying the carpet you know.'

James shook his head: 'I have no idea how you can read at a time like this. I just feel like I need to do something.' He quickly interrupted his friends reply: 'Something physical I mean… I am tempted to just start banging my head to a wall or so.'

Remus only grimaced: 'The noise would distract me even more, just keep walking.'

Before James could reply there was a soft crack and Timmy appeared. He looked at James and said: 'Mr. Dumbledore has just arrived through the floo.'

'Dumbledore?' James dumbly replied, 'What is he doing here?'

Remus did not answer but stood up from his books. And together they walked towards the entrance hall where they did indeed found the headmaster of Hogwarts. James never bothered about formal greetings but simply said: 'Albus? Why are you not at Hogwarts?'

He was shocked when he noticed that Dumbledore's usual twinkling eyes were nowhere to be seen, but even more shocked when the suddenly old looking man slowly replied: 'The board of governors decided to suspend me. And since my own home is still not habitable because of the ministry's idea of keeping it as a monument I figured I'd ask for your hospitality for tonight.'

'Suspended? Why on earth would they do that?' Remus wanted to know, just before James could ask the same question.

With a huge sigh Dumbledore replied: 'Apparently they thought it for the best since I have not been able to stop the attacks.'

'That is ridiculous!' James protested, 'Who on earth are they going to ask now?'

'As far as I know they did not select a replacement as of yet. I assume that professor McGonagall is acting as headmistress now. Could we take a seat somewhere?'

James suddenly remembered his manners, the headmaster looked dead on his feet and he quickly escorted him to a nearby sitting room. Timmy showed up behind the headmaster and pointed to him. Than he made a few gestures that mimicked eating and sleeping and James quickly nodded to the house elf, who immediately disappeared again. Only seconds later a few platters with tea and small sandwiches appeared, but there was no trace of Timmy. Most likely he was already preparing a guest room.

Albus thankfully reached for a cup while he asked: 'Do you know what happened at Hogwarts today?'

'We talked with Lily and the kids a few hours ago.' James replied.

The headmaster, or suspended headmaster at least, nodded: 'I see. Well, about an hour and a half ago Cornelius Fudge and Lucius Malfoy arrived at Hogwarts with an arrest warrant for Hagrid. There was nothing I could do to stop them, and even less when Malfoy informed me about the boards decision.' He sighed again: 'The suspension order was signed by all governors, which means that by now the Hogwarts wards will not even let me in again until the order is withdrawn by the board.'

'Bah!' James cursed, 'I am sure Malfoy threatened the other governors into signing.'

'That was Hagrids reaction as well.' Dumbledore nodded, 'But although that is likely true it does not change the facts.'

'It is suspicious though.' Remus replied, 'I know that even after today we did not have enough proof to blame Malfoys kid, but with his father acting like this I am convinced.'

'Yeah… Me too.' James replied, 'But like Sirius would say; we need proof.'

Remus chuckled: 'Yeah, Amelia is really rubbing off on him.' Then he turned serious again: 'What happened to Hagrid?'

Dumbledore shrugged uncomfortably: 'I am afraid they took him to Azkaban.'

'WHAT!' Both James and Remus shouted. Eventually it was James who continued: 'That is ridiculous! Just because he is a half-giant?'

Again, the headmaster looked uncomfortable: 'Well, there is a bit more to it…'

James held up his hand to interrupt him while his mirror heated up. He pulled it out of his shirt and enlarged it to find his wife, son and Neville and Susan looking at him: 'James! We have a problem here! Two, actually.' Lily frantically shouted.

'About Dumbledore and Hagrid?' James asked, 'We already know about that?'

'It made the news already?' Lily asked, distracted for a moment.

'No idea. But Dumbledore just showed up here.' James replied while enlarging the mirror so that Lily and the kids could see Remus and Albus as well. Lily looked surprised for a few seconds. Then she said: 'Hello Albus. Maybe you can help us with our second problem.'

'I can only hope so.' Albus simply replied, and James noticed that his eyes started to twinkle a bit again.

'About an hour ago professor Flitwick found another message written on the wall. Just like with the first attack against that poor cat.' Lily started to explain. 'But this time it said: "her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever". The heads of houses did a quick body count and only Draco Malfoy and Luna Lovegood are missing. Poor Filius is pulling his hair out wondering why he had not noticed before that she was not in the common room.'

Dumbledore looked chalk white when he stuttered: 'A student has been taken into the chamber? That's horrible.'

'Yeah. We got that part worked out.' Lily replied, clearly irritated. 'Is there anything you can tell us about the chamber Albus? Anything at all?'

'You were just going to tell us about why they arrested Hagrid.' Remus suggested when the headmaster did not immediately reply. The older man nodded gravely and said: 'Hagrid was framed when the chamber was opened before.'

He clearly wanted to say more but Lily shouted: 'What! The chamber has been opened before? Why didn't you tell us?'

The headmaster raised his hands in defence and argued: 'Last time it was Voldemort who opened it. I knew he was not involved this time. Your wonderful maps would have shown him.'

'Still… You are supposed to share information with us.' Lily muttered.

Next to her Harry asked: 'What happened the last time professor?'

Dumbledore sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot tonight. Then he started to explain: 'It was similar to what is happening right now. There were several attacks and two students got petrified. But the third time a young girl died.' He ignored the shocked gasps and continued: 'Then, young Tom Riddle came up with undeniable proof that Hagrid had been hiding a monster in his room. He was expelled and his wand was broken. I realized that Riddle, or Voldemort as he calls himself by now, had framed Hagrid though. But sadly I could not proof it and since the attacks stopped everyone called Riddle a hero. I did manage to get Hagrid a job though.'

'I wish you had told us earlier.' Lily complained, 'We could have compared those attacks to what is happening now. Maybe there is a pattern. What was the name of the girl that died?'

'Myrtle Clark. The poor girl never really got along with her fellow students.' Dumbledore replied.

Lily looked thoughtful when Susan blurted out: 'Not moaning Myrtle?'

James and Remus looked at each other in wonder. The name sounded somewhat familiar, and they realized they had seen it on the marauders map when Dumbledore replied: 'Yes, sadly she chose not to move on to the next big adventure. Instead, she haunted one of her fellow Ravenclaws until the ministry interfered and forced her to stay inside Hogwarts.'

After a few seconds Lily said: 'We should go talk with her. It is the only trail we have.'

'Wait for us!' James protested, but Lily simply shook her head: 'We can't delay now that a student has been taken. As soon as we find the monster we are going to wait for you though. I will keep the mirror activated so you can hear where we are going… You know which toilet Myrtle haunts?'

'Sirius does.' Remus replied, and when everybody looked at him in surprise he shrugged: 'He once told me in sixth or seventh year that he had been snogging with a girl in a girls bathroom when a crazy ghost showed up and scared them away.'

'Of course.' James nodded before turning to Lily again: 'We will call the others and come to Hogwarts as soon as we can. Sadly, Albus can't join us since apparently the wards will keep him away now that he is suspended.'

'Right.' Lily nodded before she turned to Harry and his friends and said: 'You guys can come with me for the first part. As soon as it gets dangerous I want you to hide under the cloak. Understood?'

They all meekly nodded and James could only guess to what kind of look she had given them. Remus was already using his own mirror to tell the others to meet them at the gates of Hogwarts and he turned to Dumbledore who looked rather deflated. The man turned to him and said: 'It seems I am getting too old for this. I never felt so useless in my life.'

James did not know what to say and simply shrugged: 'I am sure you could still defeat us all in a fight. Just try to think of something to help. And I will keep my mirror here so that you can listen in on what is happening, we'll use Remus' mirror.'

'Thanks.' Dumbledore nodded, but he still looked depressed.

James stood up and ran towards the fireplace. He would floo to the three broomsticks and apparate from there. It was faster than running outside the reach of Lionfire Halls wards. Just before he left the room he saw Dumbledore standing up with a firm look on his face, and he felt relieved to know that the headmaster was back in the game again. Although he had no idea how the man was going to help them.

— Back at Hogwarts —

Harry followed his mother and Susan who lead the way to moaning Myrtle's bathroom. He was still a bit weirded out by the very idea of a ghost that haunted a bathroom, but he did not waste his breath to comment on it. They actually ran past the wall where the new message had been written, but they did not even slow down to look at it. Soon enough they found themselves inside a bathroom and Lily called: 'Myrtle? Are you around?'

A sad looking ghost of a girl floated through one of the cubicle doors. She seemed to have been only a few years older than Harry when she had died. She looked puzzled for a few seconds but then she pointed towards Harry and Neville and complained: 'They are boys! They are not supposed to be here!'

Lily frowned and started to say something. Than she reconsidered and said: 'I like to keep them in here for now, so they have a professors permission. The left one is my son Harry and the other one is Neville.'

Myrtle still looked at them with righteous anger, so both boys decided not to talk. Then the ghost turned back to Lily and rudely asked: 'What do you want anyway?'

'I want to know how you died.' Lily simply replied.

Suddenly the ghost smiled like it was the most flattering thing anyone ever asked her. Then she excitedly started to speak: 'Oooh, it was dreadful. It happened right in here. I died in this very cubicle.' She pointed to the cubicle that she had just left. 'I remember it so well. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language it must have been. Anyway, what really got to me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then-' Myrtle straightened up and her face shined, 'I died.'

'How?' Asked Harry before he could stop himself.

'No idea.' Said Myrtle in hushed tones. Apparently talking about her dead had calmed her so much that she no longer cared about boys in her bathroom. 'I just remember seeing a pair of great big yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away…' She looked dreamily at Harry for a few seconds. 'And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Oliver Hornby you see. Oh, was she sorry that she'd ever laughed at my glasses.'

'Where exactly did you see the eyes?' Harry asked.

'Somewhere there.' Said Myrtle, pointing vaguely to the sink in front of her. Harry was the first to stand next to it, quickly followed by the other three. They all carefully studied the sink while Remus voice sounded over the mirror: 'If Myrtle was killed by the eyes of the monster it was no cockatrice, that would have only petrified her. There are several monsters who can kill with their eyes, or petrify them. But none who can do both as far as I know.'

'Where are you?' Lily wanted to know.

'Still at the gates.' Remus replied, 'Somebody closed them and they are pretty hard to open. Normally Hagrid would open them for visitors… Sirius is working on them with some kind of pocket knife.'

'There is a snake on the side of the tap.' Susan pointed to one of the copper taps. And sure enough there was an engraving of a snake there. They all looked at it for a few seconds until professor Dumbledore's voice sounded: 'A snake you say? Slytherin was a famous parceltongue, and so is Voldemort. Who was the one to open the chamber before, maybe there is a hidden door that needs a parceltongue password?'

'Snake… That would mean the monster is a basilisk I think.' Remus suggested, 'Although I am still not sure why people would be petrified by it.' James quickly added: 'Don't go near it before we arrive Lily!'

'Maybe the power of the gaze was blocked each time.' Dumbledore mused, 'I remember how Severus pulled some translucent thing away from Ms. Davis' face. Anyway, I know a parceltongue, but he lives in Spain. I could try to reach him?'

'It will take far too long. Beside that, we do not know if it will work... We do not even know what password to try' Lily dryly replied. 'Stand back kids, I want to try something.'

They all moved back and Lily wordlessly shot some kind of white energy at the sink. After a few seconds she said: 'There is a tunnel behind it… Now if we only knew the password and had a parceltongue available.'

'There are some books in the library that explain how to say some simple words. That might be faster than contacting my friend from Spain.' Dumbledore suggested through the mirror. But Lily shook her head and replied: 'It will still take too long.' She turned back to Harry and the others and said: 'All of you, hide in one of the cubicles for a second.'

They all listened, none of them really felt like arguing when Lily looked this determined. As soon as Harry closed the door he heard his mother positioning himself before she shouted: 'BOMBARDA MAXIMA!'

There was a huge explosion followed by some wails from Myrtle and the sound of loads of falling debris. As soon as it died down Harry heard his fathers surprised voice: 'Eh, Lily? Did you just blow up half a bathroom?'

'Well, it worked. Did you have a better idea?' Lily protested. Harry opened the door of his cubicle and saw his mother covered in dust and the floor covered in stone blocks. Myrtle had disappeared to who knows where. Still, the sink was gone and he saw a large pipe disappearing into the wall. Lily continued: 'There is a large pipe heading down. I am going to explore down there. I will try to avoid direct contact until you guys are here.'

'You'd better.' James replied before they heard him shout: 'Come on Sirius, hurry up!'

They heard a angry reply but Sirius seemed to be too far from the mirror to be clearly heard. Lily turned back to Harry and the others and looked at them for a few seconds. Then she said: 'I hate this, but I can not leave you here. And I do not want to waste time by bringing you back to the common room. Follow me, but stay hidden under the cloak. If something happens to me, simply wait for James and the others.'

Harry nodded in agreement. Although he already knew that there was no way that he would not try and help his mother if it was necessary. But this was not the time or the place to argue about such things.

Lily seemed to think the same, since she was already climbing into the pipe. With a shrug she dropped down and simply slid downwards. Soon enough the three kids followed her in what turned out to be a very long slippery way down. Harry just started to worry about the eventual fall when the pipe suddenly levelled out and they were shot onto the damp floor of a dark tunnel. Lily was already standing with her wand held high and a bright light showing from it.

As soon as Susan, who had went through the hole last was standing as well she nodded towards the cloak and the three of them hid below it and followed Lily who moved into the tunnel, every now and then telling James and the others where she was going. It was impossible to follow his mothers rather high speed while keeping all three of them covered under the cloak. But Harry did not really care about legs and arms flying out of its protection every now and then, there was no way that they were going to leave his mother alone.

They had been walking for about ten minutes when James' voice came through the mirror: 'Sirius managed to open the gates, we are on our way.'

'Good… So far I have seen-' Lily stopped talking and raised her wand. Harry noticed the light shining over a huge shape, it seemed not to move and he whispered: 'Maybe it's sleeping?'

Suddenly his mother moved forward again and said: 'We just found a huge snake skin. I think we can be sure there is a basilisk in here somewhere. Any advices?'

'Wait for us!' James shouted.

'Avoid the eyes.' Remus added, 'But you already knew that of course. Beside that, they are very tough so use the strongest spells you have if you have to fight it. I think fire spells would be your best bet.'

'Right.' Lily nodded, 'And I will try and wait for you James. It's just that I want to explore the tunnels. It would be a waste of time to wait for the six of you and then march into the wrong tunnel.'

'I guess.' James admitted, 'Just be careful.'

Lily did not reply but simply marched on, the kids right on her heels. The exploring turned out to be rather simple though, since the tunnel seemed to have no side tunnels. Eventually, they found themselves in front of a solid wall on which two large entwined serpents were carved. Lily only hesitated a second before she raised her wand again and shouted: 'BOMBARDA MAXIMA!'

She had raised some kind of half circular invisible shield in that second, and although most of the stones flew away from here some shrapnel dropped down a few feet in front of Lily and the kids. Lily ignored James protests about not drawing attention and did not even wait for the dust to settle. She simply marched forward, closely followed by Harry and the others. Susan was muttering that the dust would stick to the cloak and would give their position away, but none of them stopped walking.

Their view was still blocked by the swirling dust when they heard Lily's urgent whisper: 'James, shut up! I saw some movement far ahead, I do not want them to know about you.' There were some soft anxious comments before the mirror suddenly turned silent.

Harry tried to hurry forward but almost tripped when the cloak pulled him back to his two friends. Soon enough they left the dust and saw a large room filled with huge serpentine columns. 'If you see any movement, close your eyes.' Neville advised, 'It won't see us anyway.' Harry nodded, he was too focused on following his mother to really concentrate. But it sounded like a good idea. Or at least, he could not think of a better idea.

They quickly walked forward between the columns, and when they reached the end they saw a huge male statue standing at the back wall. Just in front of its giant feet were three people. Harry quickly recognized Luna Lovegood, who was lying on the ground, strangely enough there was a small black book in front of her. One of the boys standing beside her was Draco Malfoy. But the third one was a stranger. It was a black-haired boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen, and he looked somewhat insubstantial. Like Harry saw him through a misted window or so. The strange boy was the first to speak: 'I admit that I am impressed that you found us. Although the way in which you entered the room was a bit clumsy, but what else could I expect from a mudblood like you?'

'You better hand me your wands and the girl and follow me back to the school if you know what is good for you.' Lily calmly replied.

The boy and Malfoy looked at each other for a second and then both coldly laughed. The boy spoke again: 'Do you have any idea who I am?'

Lily did not reply, and the boy continued: 'I am lord Voldemort! You do not stand a chance against me!'

He looked affronted when Lily laughed: 'I faced Voldemort before. He is way older than you, and more inhuman. Although I admit that the blurry effect looks interesting enough.'

The boy, Voldemort, looked to Luna and chuckled: 'It will fade soon enough, although the girl is putting up a fight. Anyway, I am not going to waste my energy on you.' He turned to the statue and started to speak. But instead of words he uttered strange hissing sounds. Harry was tempted to fire a stunner at the back of the boy, but he stopped hissing and turned around before Harry could get his aim. The boy sneered and said: 'Meet your doom, mudblood. And feel pride in the knowledge that it is Salazar Slytherins personal monster that is going to take your worthless life.'

'In your dreams.' Lily muttered defiantly. But like Harry and the others she was watching how the statues mouth opened. Something huge stirred inside it. Lily did not hesitate, and for the third time tonight she shouted: 'BOMBARDA MAXIMA!'

There was a huge explosion followed by a loud thud when something large fell on the floor. Voldemort just chuckled: 'Oh my, you angered it.'

'Close your eyes.' Susan ordered, 'Our spells won't be any good against a basilisk anyway. We'll only distract your mother if we try to help her Harry.'

Reluctantly Harry did close his eyes, although he kept his wand pointed in the general direction of the basilisk. Maybe he could still help somehow. Before he could work out a plan they were interrupted by strange beautiful unearthly music coming from the hallway. He turned around and opened his eyes, hoping to see his father and the others charging into the room. He was surprised when he saw a large fiery bird gliding into the room instead, and even more so when it dropped the sorting hat next to the three of them before flying on.

Suddenly there was a loud hissing noise and a few smashing sounds when something huge crashed against the wall repeatedly. It went on for a few seconds and eventually they all heard Voldemort shout: 'Bloody bird! You can still smell her though, crush her!' Then he repeated his orders in that strange hissing language. Meanwhile Lily shouted, clearly for the kids benefit: 'Fawkes took out its eyes! Well done Fawkes.'

Immediately Harry opened his eyes again and pointed his wand at the basilisk. He saw two rivers of blood streaming out of its empty eye sockets and he saluted Fawkes when the bird passed them again. He was not sure if the bird could see them, but why else would it have dropped the sorting hat just next to them?

His mother had summoned some kind of huge fiery whip and was using it to keep the huge snake away. She was not really damaging it, but the monster at least respected the heat from the weapon and kept its distance. Out of the corner of his eyes Harry saw Malfoy and Voldemort drawing their wands and he shouted: 'Mum, look out! Behind you!' Before shooting a stunner at Malfoy. It was quickly followed by Susans and Neville's stunners, and the blond boy was still gawking in surprise when the three spells took him in the chest.

Voldemort was a different manner though, and he effortlessly blocked there second salvo and shouted: 'Show yourselves! Cowards!'

'Do it, try to keep him busy! We're at the snakeskin, almost there.' The voice of Neville's father sounded from his shirt. Apparently he had also kept open a connection. The three kids looked at each other and shrugged, then Harry pulled the cloak away and quickly put it next to the sorting hat. Neville and Susan moved to his sides so that they were all several feet apart.

Voldemort looked thoughtful and said: 'Harry Potter I presume? Draco told me a lot about you. He will be most disappointed when he learns that he is not the only second year that can do a stunning spell.'

'Tough luck for him.' Harry shrugged. And then, by lack of a better idea of what to say he continued: 'I expected you to be older.'

The boy just sneered and raised a hand to block Lily's firewhip when it got awfully close to him. Lily almost lost her balance, but recovered just in time to flung the whip full into the basilisks face. It hissed loudly and retreated again. Meanwhile Voldemort calmly replied: 'But I am. Or at least, the real me is older. I am but a memory, preserved in a diary. But still strong enough to kill all of you.'

Harry tightened the grip on his wand and said: 'Big words, but so far you only managed to get your ally stunned and your pet snake blinded.'

With an evil sneer Voldemort replied: 'The Malfoy boy was worthless anyway. And the basilisks eyes will regrow in a few days, it has amazing restorative abilities. Didn't you notice that the flame whip barely leaves tracks? And how fast those tracks fade?' Harry studied the snake for a few seconds, or more precisely, he studied the ongoing battle between his mother and the basilisk. Lily was not giving any ground, but the same could be said from the basilisk. At least it was clear that his mother would not be able to help them anytime soon.

'Anyway, however pleasant this conservation might be. I feel the time is right for some less pleasant measures.' Voldemort said in a falsely sweet voice before he shouted: 'Crucio!'

Harry ducked and barely avoided a colourless spell. He shot an expelliarmus from the ground, which was accompanied by a stunner from Neville and an incarcerous spell from Susan. But Voldemort did not even raise his wand, instead he somehow made the spells fizzle into nothingness some two feet in front of him. He chuckled and said: 'Children, why do you not realize the futility of your actions?' Before he moved his wand in an amazingly fast swipe. Suddenly, all three of them were jumping and dodging a rain of spells. For a while they did alright, although Harry had the distinct feeling that Voldemort was playing with them. This feeling only grew stronger when Neville missed a dodge and his arm shot backwards. There was an audible crack and Neville slummed to the ground with his arm in an awkward angle. Immediately, Voldemort stopped his bombardment and smirked at them.

Although most likely Harry was the only one to see that smirk. Susan was running towards Neville who was trying to move his clearly hurt arm. Harry kept his wand pointed towards Voldemort and tried to think of a way to win more time, but suddenly a huge fireball flew past him. Voldemort looked surprised but blocked it anyway. The next thing Harry realized was that Sirius, Remus and Frank ran past him and charged Voldemort. Looking around he saw his father standing next to his mother, both hurling fireballs to the basilisk. On his other side Alice crouched next to Neville and Susan and he quickly ran over to see if he could help. Alice had just magically healed Neville's arm, although it still was in a sling, and the boy looked as white as a ghost now while sweat streamed down his face. But he did not complain. Alice quickly looked at each of them in turn before she said: 'Stay out of this, you're not ready yet. And I am sorry I can not stay Nev, but they need me.'

'Of course.' Neville managed to say, but his mother had already ran away.

Susan and Harry both took positions next to Neville, their wands raised in defence. But Voldemort seemed more than busy now. Alice had joined her husband and Sirius and Remus in a sort of half circle and all four of them were raining down spells on Voldemort. Harry saw red, blue, green, white, yellow and even colourless beams flying towards the so called dark lord. Amazingly enough Voldemort still managed to return fire every now and then.

His eyes drifted to his parents and the basilisk again, and to his shock he saw the basilisk blindly charging forward now. It simply ignored his parents fireballs and almost crushed Harry's father with its bulk. Both his parents kept raining down spells, and although the basilisk twitched uncomfortably every now and then it hardly slowed. Most likely its master had ordered it to hurry up.

Harry desperately looked around for a way to help, and his eyes landed on the sorting hat. Suddenly he wondered why Fawkes would bring it to them and he jumped towards it. Not having a better idea he put it on his head and said: 'Help us please!'

There was no answer, but the head contracted, like it was squeezed by an invisible hand. Something hard and heavy thudded into Harry's head and he saw stars and had to blink away a few tears before he could remove the hat and saw that a large silver sword now rested in it. Hesitantly he grabbed the ruby-covered hilt and pulled it free. It was a long sword, and surprisingly easy to wield. But he did not really like the idea of charging a basilisk with it. Still, he noticed that this time his mother only barely avoided the wild charge of the huge snake.

Suddenly he remembered one of the sport classes from junior school during which they had fooled around with blunt spears. He tried to mimic the position of a spear-thrower with the hilt of the sword resting on his right hand. He was sure this looked foolish, but going into melee with a huge basilisk seemed even more stupid. With a grunt he whipped his arm forward and to his own surprise the sword flew straight for the snake and imbedded itself deep into its side. The huge snake twitched around frantically and suddenly the sword disappeared again. For a few seconds Harry wondered what happened, but then he noticed something sparkling outside the corner of his eyes and he turned back to the hat and saw that the sword had returned to it.

With a shrug he pulled it free again and copied his earlier move. This time he caught the snake just behind the head and the beast reared its head to the ceiling. Sadly, it seemed that the snake had noticed him now though. And as soon as its head came down it turned into his direction and started to slither towards him, simply ignoring the huge fireballs that tortured its sides. Harry looked behind him and saw that Susan and the now unconscious Neville were straight in the basilisks path, so running was not an option. Frantically, he grabbed for the sword again and prepared himself for one last throw. He aimed for the snakes wide open mouth but missed. The sword went about a feet higher and thudded right between its empty eye sockets. Suddenly the head dropped down and with a quick curse Harry managed to tumble away from it. The huge body shivered a few times before it suddenly stopped moving.

Before Harry could stand up his father pulled him upright shouting: 'Brilliant Harry! Sure you don't want to be a chaser?'

Lily pulled him away from James and hugged him close for a few seconds before she said: 'Thanks Harry. Now stay with Susan and Neville okay? We will finish that memory-Voldemort.'

'How?' James wondered.

'We need to find and destroy the horcrux while the others keep him occupied.' Lily replied, 'I am sure that thing is responsible for all of it.'

'Right.' James nodded, 'Now where could it be?'

'I noticed some kind of book in front of Luna.' Harry suggested.

His parents looked doubtful but nodded nonetheless before urging Harry towards Susan and the now floating Neville. As soon as he joined them Susan beamed: 'That was brilliant Harry! And it seems the others are holding their ground against Voldemort. What are your parents doing?'

'They are trying to find the horcrux. They think the memory-Voldemort, as my mum called him, will disappear with it.' He nodded to Neville: 'Wingardium Leviosa?'

'Yeah, it was the only way I could think of to get him out of the way of the basilisk. Your way was more effective though.' Susan replied.

Harry did not really know how to reply to that, so he looked towards the battle again. It was still going strong, with all kinds of colourful hexes flying around the room. Every now and then even the three of them had to shield or dodge a stray spell. He tried to pay attention to his parents, but the fight kept drawing his attention. And so he was surprised when suddenly a much brighter colour appeared to its left, he was just in time to see a small but wild fire dying down in front of his parents. Then there was an unearthly shriek and seconds later the battle died down. There was no trace of Voldemort anymore.

Deeper in the room Luna suddenly stirred and dreamily said: 'Oh, that was a weird nightmare. The nargles must have gotten to me somehow.' Then she looked around in wonder and said: 'Oh.'

Some twenty minutes later they found themselves in professor McGonagalls magically enlarged office. Although Susan, Neville and his parents were at the hospital wing. All heads of houses had joined them after McGonagall sent a few silvery cats as messengers and they had all listened to Lily's recount of the long day. As soon as she was finished she turned to the still unconscious Malfoy and said: 'I want to use veritaserum to interrogate Malfoy.'

McGonagall looked shocked: 'I don't think Albus would agree with that.'

'That's why I ask it now.' Lily shrugged, 'I was hoping you would be more reasonable Minerva. After all, this boy here tried to kill other students. It is pure luck that the basilisk only petrified people, and that we were in time to save Luna.'

Luna politely smiled when she saw everybody looking at her. She had not said a word since Fawkes had flew them out of the chamber. But now her head of house asked her a direct question: 'How did Malfoy get to you Luna? Weren't you in the common room?'

With a shrug the small blond girl replied: 'No, I was looking for some of my clothes.'

Flitwick looked confused: 'Why would your clothes be outside the common room?'

Luna shrugged again: 'The others like to hide them sometimes. I am not sure why.'

'Right…' Flitwick nodded with a grim expression, 'It seems I'll have to talk with my house again.'

In the meanwhile McGonagall had considered Lily's request and she said: 'I think veritaserum would be a good idea. But the Hogwarts rules clearly state that the head of house of the student has the final say.'

'I am on my way.' Was all that Snape said before he left the room, his cloak billowing behind him. James and Sirius looked at each other in clear surprise, but none of them said anything. Instead, they all waited in silence until Snape returned after a few minutes. The potions master carefully administered three drops of a colourless potion to the still unconscious Malfoy before he used a silent spell to finally wake him.

Malfoy looked around with a foggy expression, it was clear to see that he was under the influence of the potion. Snape nodded to Lily who did not waste time but immediately asked: 'Malfoy. Did you use that small black book to control the basilisk during this school year?'

'Yes.' Was all Malfoy replied, his voice toneless and his face emotionless.

'Who told you to do that?' Lily continued.

'The dark lord himself. And my father agreed.'

There were several curses at this, but Lily ignored them: 'Is the dark lord hiding at your parents house?'

'No, but he visits sometimes.'

'Why did the dark lord want you to summon the basilisk?' Remus asked.

'As a distraction… He felt sure that a threat at Hogwarts would draw a lot of attention from his main opponents.' Everybody looked at each other uneasily after that and Remus asked: 'Do you know what else he is planning?'

'No, he never told me. I don't think he even told my father.' Malfoy continued, still in that odd voice.

'Is there anything you know about the dark lords plans? Or his whereabouts?' Snape asked.

Malfoy seemed to think it over for a few seconds before he simply said: 'No.'

Everybody seemed to think about what else they could ask. Eventually it was Harry who asked: 'How did you select your targets? For the attacks I mean?'

'That stupid cat and Davis walked in on me while I was practicing with the basilisk.' Malfoy explained. 'Then Finch-Fletchley seemed like a nice target after I heard that he had a fight with the Gryffindor Weasel. And today the dark lord simply ordered me to cause as much mayhem as I could. So I let the basilisk run loose until he found some victims, and later on I kidnapped the Lovegood girl.'

'He specifically asked you to cause mayhem today?' Sirius asked, clearly alarmed. And after a toneless yes he dived for the fireplace and activated the floo connection.

'Why did you kidnap Luna anyway?' Flitwick wanted to know.

'The dark lord needed to drain the life force of a victim to restore his memory into a living creature. It would not be as formidable as the dark lord himself, but still a very strong wizard. Together with the basilisk his memory would clean the school of mudbloods.'

'Ten points from Slytherin.' An obviously shocked McGonagall replied, although Harry was sure the shock had less to do with the word than with the situation.

'I wondered why our spells had so much trouble affecting Voldemort, but he was still half insubstantial I guess.' Remus muttered. 'Good thing that you destroyed the item Lily.'

Lily nodded: 'I am trying to think of more questions. But nothing comes to mind.' Some others nodded in agreement and Lily continued: 'Can we expel him?'

McGonagall hesitated: 'I'd figured we should hand him to the aurors.'

'They seem to be busy tonight.' Sirius replied while climbing out of the fireplace again. 'There were only two juniors at the ministry, and they did not want to tell me where the others were.'

Several people looked uncomfortable at that, but Lily turned back to her earlier point: 'The boy should be handed to the aurors. But you all know that the minister is deep in his fathers pocket anyway, so he might very well get away with it.' It was clear to see that the idea was disgusting to her. 'Still, he just admitted that he tried to kill other students. If he attends this school again next year I will withdraw Harry.'

'And I Susan.' Sirius quickly added: 'And I am sure a lot of the other parents would agree.'

'And in that case you would need to look for a defence teacher again.' Remus said.

McGonagall gravely nodded: 'Very well. And actually, I do agree with you. I will expel young Mr. Malfoy. And when Albus returns I will make sure he does not revoke that decision.'

'Thank you Minerva.' Lily nodded. 'I think it is time that we escort Harry back to his common room before we all go and get some rest then.'

'Yes.' Minerva agreed, 'I will keep an eye on Mr. Malfoy until the aurors can come to collect him.'

'I will accompany you.' Snape added.

Nobody seemed to have a problem with this. And some ten minutes later a suddenly very tired Harry crawled in his bed after making sure that Neville was sleeping soundly in his own bed. However tired he was, sleep eluded him for a long time. He kept replaying the events of last night in his mind. And he had to admit to himself that he was awed by the fight between the adults and Voldemort and the basilisk. He wondered how on earth he could ever become that good, but he guessed he just had to keep on training. Eventually he fell asleep with a smile on his face when he realized that next year Malfoy would not be at Hogwarts anymore.

_A/N:Pfew, longest chapter so far I think. In fact, I was thinking of splitting it around the second 'bombarda maxima' for two decent sized chapters. But I figured I should be nice and give you a long chapter;) Hope you all liked it. _

_On a side note; did I miss a quidditch match somewhere? It seems a bit late in the book for Harry's second quidditch match, but I can not find anything about the match versus Ravenclaw._

_So, to reviews once more:_

_Teufel1987: Well, as you can see I chose for a different approach to solve the parceltongue problem ;) A bit less scientific, but hope you liked it anyway._

_Happylady: Isn't 'being Hermione' enough reason for wanting to know things? But maybe she has other motives…_

_Snowball1982: You're welcome!_

_MAFITA: Yeah, a career guide for the Potterverse would be nice;) Still, I have a couple years to think about what they all will do after Hogwarts. _

_HarnGin: It would be an easy OWL, but classes and homework would still consume time that they could better spend on the DA and the other subjects. So I don't think they will take it. _

_Acacia Rose Masen: Harry is not sure either. Poor boy ;) And I figured little changes like Harry actually asking for advice about his electives made sense in this timeline. A small thing like that changes a lot though, since I could not see Lily advising him to take divination…_

_Rori Potter: Thanks!_

_Babybutterflyjam: I always said I would try and stick to canon when possible. But pairings might very well turn out different. The problem with for example the Harry/ Ginny pairing is that this time around Ginny does not have a boy-who-lived-crush and Harry is not her brothers best friend. So they have less opportunities to get to know each other... Still, maybe they will ;)_

_Blue Luver5000: Yeah, it was :) Little things like that make the world of Harry Potter alive I guess. I should put more little events like that in my own story, but I am worried that I'll go over a million words eventually if I start doing that :P _


	39. End of second year

**End of second year**

It was the day after the fight with the basilisk and the half solidified memory of Voldemort. And Harry, Neville and Susan finally managed to create some space for themselves in the great hall so that they could get to their breakfast. Everybody wanted to know what had happened yesterday, and of course the Hogwarts rumour mill had already named the three of them as the people to talk to. At least Lily had woken them very early to tell them a censured version of the events of yesterday. The adults had decided it was a bad idea to talk about Voldemort. Instead, they had to tell everybody that Malfoy was responsible for the monster, which was true in a way of course. Apparently Luna had been approached as well, but she had simply scared all the inquisitive students away with a story about nargles. Right now, it sounded like a very good idea to Harry. Maybe he should ask the blond girl about those creatures sometime.

Most of the school was in a cheerful mood. Partly because the monster was defeated and partly because Malfoy was expelled. The only sour faces belonged to some quidditch fanatics like Wood and a few Slytherins that were friends with Malfoy. It all changed when a special edition of the Daily Prophet arrived though. Shocked outcries rang through the great hall, and a great many people suddenly seemed upset.

Harry, Susan and Neville frowned at each other in wonder. None of them had a subscription to the prophet, so they had to wait for someone else to tell them what was going on. Harry decided to be impatient today. Looking around he saw that Elisa, the girl from the quidditch try-outs, had a daily prophet in her hand. She was debating its contents with her friends already, so Harry asked: 'Elisa? Could I see the paper for a moment?'

The girl barely nodded to him before she handed over the paper. She seemed much more interested in the discussion with her friends. Harry quickly opened the newspaper. Susan leaned close to him and Neville leaned over the table to see it as well. They all gasped for air when they read the headline: _MASS BREAKOUT AT AZKABAN!_

Harry quickly browsed through the article and read that twelve of the most dangerous death eaters of the last war had escaped from Azkaban. He vaguely recognized some of the names. Most of the article was filled up with ministry officials explaining that they did not know how the breakout had happened. Even Susans aunt had been interviewed, she mentioned that the Hogwarts groundkeeper had been unharmed and was now released due to events at Hogwarts. She also explained how she suspected involvement from outside the prison. The three of them of course immediately realized that she meant Voldemort, and they also made the link between Malfoys distraction and this attack. Still, they could hardly discuss those things in the great hall. And so they could only ponder the news in silence. Harry stared at the head table for a while and saw that all teachers were in a heated debate, but eventually he joined the debate between Ron, Seamus and Dean. That was none less heated but about a very different subject, their question was if the quidditch season would be finished or not.

The next Thursday evening Harry found himself in front of the DA. He had levitated a long table to the centre of the great hall and was walking circles upon it. He had been thinking a lot during the last few days, and he was determined to share his thoughts with the defence association tonight. But he had some trouble with finding a place to start.

Eventually he shrugged and just began: 'During the weekend Neville, Susan and I followed my mother into the chamber of secrets.' There were some soft cheers, but Harry ignored them: 'We were quickly joined by some other adults. And the three of us mostly just watched the ongoing fight between them and the basilisk.' He had been thinking about mentioning a dangerous adult enemy wizard as well, but it would be too suspicious since none of them had mentioned Voldemort to the others until now. He slowly shook his head: 'The strength and the speed of the spells used were amazing. And it pretty much showed me that we still have a lot to learn.'

'But they are adults!' Lisa Turpin, a Ravenclaw girl objected. And when Harry only looked at her she continued: 'It is unfair to compare us to them. We only practised magic for a few years.'

Harry nodded: 'True enough I guess. But do you think that any of the escaped death eaters would care about that if they encountered you?' Lisa paled and shook her head, several others looked unsettled as well and Harry grimly nodded: 'No, they won't… I am not saying that they are going to hunt any of us.' Well, maybe him. But that did not matter right now. 'But I think we should prepare ourselves just in case. With so many dangerous people out there it can't hurt.'

'Isn't that what we were doing for the last few years anyway?' Dean Thomas asked. 'I mean, I really enjoyed myself at the DA. But at the same time I learned a lot about defence here.'

'That is good to hear Dean.' Harry smiled, 'And yes, we have been working on our defence. But besides the dodging we have focused too much on a theoretical approach.'

'You only dare to say that because Hermione and Tracey aren't here.' Daphne smiled.

Harry chuckled, imagining the look Hermione would have given him if he had said something like that in front of her. Most of the other students also chuckled, and Harry waited for the noise to die down. Then he continued: 'True enough. And I am not saying that we wasted our time. It is a good thing that we learned more spells, although I still think we need more real combat spells. Just that there are other things we will have to learn to prepare us for the real world. Let me give you an example Daphne, last week we fought a mock duel. Sometimes you used a shield again my spells, sometimes you dodged. How did you know what to do?'

Daphne looked confused: 'Well, it depended on what spell you used. Some spells, mainly colourless ones, are more difficult to dodge because they are so hard to see.'

'Would it surprise you if I said that I barely heard a spell being casted last week?' Harry asked.

Daphne frowned: 'Silent spell casting you mean? I know that we are supposed to learn that somewhere in the higher years… And I can see how it would make duelling much more difficult…'

'Exactly.' Harry agreed. 'And while I have no idea how silent spell casting works I figured we could try whispered spell casting for now. That way we can at least practice how to fight against an opponent that uses silent spell casting. Beside that, it is probably a good exercise for our own magical control as well, I tried to do some whispered spells yesterday… it is harder than it sounds.'

'Maybe some of the fourth years already worked with silent spells?' Neville asked.

It was Angelina Johnson, the Gryffindor chaser, who replied: 'No. I think they only start that after OWLs, so during sixth year.'

'Right.' Harry nodded, 'Let's try some mock duels with whispered spells today then. It is only one of the things that we will have to work on, but I don't want to spend all of the meeting on this table.'

He focused on some of those other things that they still had to learn. He was pretty interested in the bombarda maxima spell that his mother had used a few times. And those fire whips looked interesting as well. Beside that he wanted to practice on formations a bit, he had been rather impressed when Remus, Sirius, Frank and Alice surrounded the memory of Voldemort and bombarded it with spells from various directions. And since for the next few years most of the students would have less power than the average death eater it would be a good idea if they spend a few DA meetings on fighting as a group.

All around him people teamed up for today's spell duels, and when Harry finally looked around he saw that only Luna Lovegood was still waiting. She was looking at him with a hopeful expression and he just shrugged and waved her over. She smiled brightly and the two of them found a reasonably empty spot between Neville and Susan on one side and two Ravenclaw girls, Cho Chang and Padma Patil, on the other side.

Usually, Harry tried to hold back a little when he was paired up with a first year. But he quickly realised that Luna hardly needed it. Her whispered spells were actually not that bad, and she seemed to be one of the very few who managed to cast them quiet easily. Harry noticed that lot of the other students saw their spells sizzle into nothingness halfway between the caster and their opponents. But he had to dodge or shield against all of Luna's attempts, and she seemed to have a rather uncanny insight in guessing what spells he was using. Every now and then he signalled for a break so he could look around the hall for a bit and he noticed many students falling to simple spells that they should have dodged or shielded. Apparently, they needed too much time to think about what to do when they did not hear the spells name. It somewhat reassured him that not everybody handled it as easily as Luna. He was almost getting worried that he was the only one. At least all his spells worked perfectly, although of course he had already practiced a bit before tonight.

After a while he told Neville that he was a lucky guy because he had the opportunity to fight both Susan and Luna at the same time while Harry walked around the great hall for a while. He carefully made mental notes about who was showing most proficiency with the whispered spell casting, while wondering if he could get his parents to teach him silent spell casting during the summer.

Every now and then he noticed a few aurors looking into the great hall. After the Azkaban breakout the ministry kept a small team of aurors at Hogwarts all day long. And they seemed rather interested in what the DA was doing. Harry had considered asking them for help, but they kept their distance from the students and eventually he had decided not to.

Two weeks after the fight with the basilisk they had a very pleasant surprise when Hermione and all the other victims of the basilisk suddenly sprinted into the great hall during breakfast. After a lot of very tight hugs Neville asked: 'How did they manage this? I know that the mandrakes still have a few weeks to go before they are fully grown.'

'Professor Snape used some very expensive ingredients, mainly basilisk scales, in an experimental potion. He made it work with adolescent mandrakes.' Hermione beamed, 'I am so glad that you guys all came out unscathed, I was so worried when I found out there was a basilisk roaming around. You'll have to tell me all about it though.'

'Sure, but not here.' Harry replied, vaguely waving around to show the crowded great hall and the group of Gryffindors that had just welcomed her and was still paying a lot of interest to their conservation. Hermione nodded and Harry changed to a safer subject: 'It is good to have you back though. Will you go back to class as well?'

'Of course.' Hermione replied, clearly surprised that anyone could think different. 'I only missed two weeks. That is not too bad; I'll just have to work a bit harder to catch up. But poor Tracey and Justin will most likely have to spend large parts of their summer on schoolwork if they want to move towards third year.'

Harry turned around, he had been seated with his back towards the other tables, and saw that Justin was in the middle of a large and rather cheerful group of Hufflepuffs. Tracey, on the other hand, only had Daphne and a few other Slytherins gathered around her. The groups around Penelope Clearwater and Hermione both were somewhere between those two examples.

'I am sure both of them will manage.' Susan replied.

'I guess.' Hermione shrugged, 'I just hope they will find the time to attend the DA camp.'

Neville frowned: 'Actually, camp might be cancelled this year.'

'What? Why?' Hermione wanted to know.

'There was a mass breakout from Azkaban on the day that you were petrified.' Susan explained, 'Our parents have discussed their options for the last two weeks. And eventually they decided that Lionfire Manor should be safe enough.'

'But they only just started approaching the other parents.' Harry continued, 'So far, they seem to agree.'

Neville grinned: 'The Potter wards are legendary in the pureblood society. I don't think many parents will be upset to see their children behind them for a few days.'

'Let's hope so.' Hermione said, 'I was really looking forward to it.'

'Me too.' Harry agreed. He loved his parents, but summer was so much better when part of it was spent with their friends.

'Good to see you awake again Hermione.' A cheerful voice suddenly said from behind Harry. He turned around again and saw Nymphadora Tonks, the pink haired auror who had been at last years DA camp as well.

'Thanks, Tonks.' Hermione smiled, 'What are you doing at Hogwarts?'

'Oh, the ministry has a small number of aurors at Hogwarts until summer break. You know, with the breakout and all that.' Tonks shrugged, 'This week I am on Hogwarts duty. I am not supposed to talk with the students, but when I saw you I figured I should say hi.'

'Only until summer break? What about next year?' Susan asked.

Tonks shifted uncomfortably: 'Well, your aunt would like to keep a small detachment stationed at Hogwarts. But we simply lack the manpower. And Fudge seems determined not to give us any extra budget. The headmaster has been visiting the ministry every few days to talk about possible solutions.'

'Oh, I see.' Was all that Susan had to say to that.

Suddenly Tonks' expression brightened again and she turned to Harry: 'I need your help Harry!'

'Really?' Harry frowned, wondering what that was about.

'Yeah.' Tonks answered, 'You know that I am dating Remus, right?'

'Of course.' Harry replied, frowning even more.

'Good. You see, the problem is… He keeps spoiling me with little thoughtful gifts. Which is great of course. But I want to give him something nice too and it is hard to think of something. He seems so content with what he has… Do you have any ideas?'

Harry thought about that for a few seconds. Eventually he said: 'It is always tough to think of something to give to Remus. Usually my father and Sirius give him some crazy mock presents, and my mother gives him books.'

'Yeah, I noticed the mock presents.' Tonks grinned, 'Didn't he ever mention something he really wanted?'

Again Harry had to think for a short time. Then he suddenly laughed: 'He once said he wanted a family some day.'

Tonks actually backed up a few steps and held her hands in defensive positions: 'Hold your horses! Let's not get overexcited now. Maybe in a few years or so…'

Harry shrugged: 'He seems to doubt about his own family wishes every few weeks or so anyway.'

'I once overheard him talking with my parents. They were talking about our last holiday to France, and Remus said he always wanted to see Paris.' Hermione suggested.

Tonks looked thoughtful: 'Hmm, Paris huh? That could be fun… A little more expensive than I was aiming for, but still much better than kids!' She said that last part with a mock glare to Harry, who just shrugged helplessly. 'Thanks Hermione, I'll think about it. But I should move back to my post before my boss starts to complain.'

'Cya around Tonks.' They all said.

The rest of the breakfast was spent by answering Hermione's questions about what else had happened during the last few weeks. Of course, beside the breakout there was not much news beside classes and DA sessions. And the fact that the quidditch season was cancelled, but although that had gathered a lot of reactions Hermione only shrugged. She seemed to agree with Harry's little speech about how the DA should focus more on practical combat though, and was actually impressed with Harry's idea about whispered spell casting. She even tried to summon a fruit bowl with a whispered command and was disappointed when it toppled halfway down the table. Harry just grinned and decided not to mention his own first attempt at a whispered spell. He had tried to summon his watch and had accidentally ended up with only the clock. It had took him almost half an hour to attach it to the leather straps again before he could wrap it around his arm.

They were only interrupted when Tracey and Daphne showed up. Tracey seemed torn between being happy that Malfoy was expelled and sad that she had somehow missed several months of the year. They all assured her she would be fine, and after a few minutes she left with a watery smile on her face.

_A/N: And that's second year done. I am not going to write about the exams, since not much is going to happen with exams until OWLs anyway. And the train drive home is not that exciting either. So next chapter will be during the summer break._

_So, to reviews again:_

_Teufel1987: I could have done that, but I hate loose ends like that;) It would feel like I just gave Harry some kind of power and was too lazy to explain how he got it. _

_I probably made the parceltongue mistake before then… I'll check and edit it when I have some free time._

_And yeah, Susan cheering against Hufflepuff was a bit weird._

_Babybutterflyjam: Hehe, I think the amount of people who like Harry/Ginny and the amount that prefer Harry/different character seems about equal. Although of course I only base that on the reviews/ private messages I received for this story;)_

_HarnGin: Hmm, I am not sure if you can take the OWLs without having followed the class? It might actually still involve some work that way, since you will have to focus on the topics that were discussed. Maybe I look into it during their fifth year…_

_And not much of a fall out in this chapter. After all, most of the students were happy to see Malfoy gone;) I thought about writing a scene between Malfoy senior and a few Hogwarts staff members, but could not really fit it into Harry's or James' point of view._

_Deanine: I know, I tried to play on the 'keep your kid in sight when there is danger' angle, but it did not really make sense to me either;) Still, sometimes the characters have to act illogical to make the story work. My second option was to have Harry and the others sneak after Lily against her wishes, but that created other problems._

_Sanbeegoldiewhitey: Thanks, I thought it was a nice solution. Just a bit messy;)_

_BigBadWolfTardis: This time around it actually was Malfoy, glad to see that no one so far thought it was either too obvious or too unrealistic after the earlier chapters. And yup, Lily is scary :D_

_Blue Luver5000: If I go over a million words I should hand out medals to everybody who finishes reading the story :P _

_MAFITA: Good to hear. It is difficult to think of reasonable alternative events sometimes. But at least this year I could focus on some canon events, that will be harder next year… _

_Trockmorton: I already replied to Deanine about Lily's decision. And I do agree about the flat adults. I thought about giving the supporting adults like Frank, Alice and Amelia some more depth. But if I do that I am afraid that the story will slow down too much._

_Nice to hear that you like the power/ childhood balance :) _

_Kisa Black: It follows canon, but there are some major changes and a lot of minor changes due to what happened in earlier chapters. For example, next year will not be about Sirius hunting Peter. _

_Acacia Rose Masen: At first I was thinking of Harry actually charging the basilisk, but then I figured that even Harry would not be stupid enough to charge a huge snake with a tiny sword. So this was the best I could come up with;)_

_Deant33: I know what you mean. I used to do that, but then people told me I used too much abbrevations;) I guess it is a result of not being a native English speaker, makes it hard to find a balance._

_And Sirius will be teaching in fourth year. Frank will do seventh year and James and Alice will do fifth and sixth, can't really remember which one of them is supposed to do fifth, but since that wasn't your question I am too lazy to look it up right now… ;)_


	40. Sneaking through the night

**Sneaking through the night**

Harry quickly crawled towards the next bush. It was very dark tonight, with only some starlight. He had already transfigured his clothes to a black garb, and had actually covered his face with a now black handkerchief. Still, he had to cross through a wide ditch without being noticed. And the small bushes spread through it were sparse, and almost too small too hide in.

He had carefully watched the six patrolling wizards before leaving the safety of the forest, but he had to admit that they were good. They did not allow themselves to fall into a pattern, and sometimes randomly changed their direction or even changed position with another guard. They also protected each others backs, so it was not enough to only keep an eye on the guard nearest to you when attempting to cross. As many of his fellow students had already found out when they tried to run to the other side of the ditch.

Of course, the worst thing that happened when you were caught was that you had to return to the safe side again and got a point against you. And, if Sirius was the one to catch you he added some cheeky words. It was just a game they were playing during the third night of the DA summer camp after all. Actually, it was quite a fun game. You had too cross from one side of the ditch to the other side, grab a trophy one you arrived there, and then sneak back through the ditch and bring it back for five points. However, six adults were patrolling through the ditch, equipped with muggle flash lights. If they caught you with their light beams you had to return to the starting side and lost your trophy if you were on the way back already. Beside that, you would lose a point. Several of Harry's friends had argued that a successful run was worth five times as much as a failed one, so they figured they could take some risk.

Harry had not replied to them, but he had disagreed. He wanted to use this game as an exercise for the real world. If he ever needed to sneak past some death eaters it was hardly likely that they would offer him a second chance if they caught him. On the other hand, nobody would really care about points either. So his goal was to cross the ditch only once, or twice if you counted the way back as a separate crossing, but avoid being caught at all costs.

And so he had carefully observed the six adults before starting his run. He had patiently waited until the two who seemed the worst at patrolling were in front of him. To his left Sirius was too easily distracted when he caught someone, and Harry planned to abuse that. And to his right Alice just seemed not too good at finding people.

He had quite easily reached the third bush on his planned route. But now came the hardest part, a twenty feet run without any cover. It was a good thing that it was so dark, but every now and then one of the adults randomly shot a light beam through the open spot. He tried to find a pattern, but it was impossible. Although it seemed that there were at least fifteen seconds of darkness after every light beam. He had to wait close to thirty minutes until a light beam appeared at exactly the same time that Sirius captured someone. He quickly glanced towards Alice, saw that her back was towards him and ran for it.

He was tempted to dive into the bush, but it would make too much noise, so he carefully slipped through a few branches. He found a small cave like area inside it and to his surprise he found Hermione there, clutching a trophy to her now sand coloured robe. He smiled at her and gave her a thumbs-up, but refused to talk. It would only attract the adults. Hermione obviously thought the same thing, for she only smiled in return before looking at the same empty spot that Harry had just crossed. For a moment he wondered how long Hermione would take before attempting to cross it, she was by far the most careful from his immediate friends and he wondered if he should take another route on his way back. Eventually he just shrugged and focused on his next and last hideout before he would run for the other side. He noticed that there was actually a small slit in the earth leading to it, and quickly dropped himself in it and slowly belly-crawled towards the bush. He made sure to remove every small stick or leaf that he found in his way before advancing, and it took him a long time to reach the following hideout. But no light beam came anywhere close to him.

Once inside the bush he encountered a smirking Daphne. He just shrugged, he guessed he would have looked silly while crawling towards her. But it had worked. Daphne was also dressed in black and had her blond hair covered with some kind of a scarf. She was holding a trophy, she pointed to it and raised two fingers, then she pointed towards him and he just shrugged again. Daphne looked puzzled, but then also shrugged and moved towards the point where Harry had just entered the bush. She seemed to be wondering if she should copy Harry's action, or if she was going to make a run for it. For a second a thought crossed Harry's mind, maybe he should wait for her to move, then throw something after her to attract the adults. That way, he would have a safe run towards the other side. But then he realised that if he translated that to a real life situation it would mean that he offered up a friend to his enemies for his own safe passage, and he would never do that. He made sure to wait until Daphne left though, she was most likely more interested in the game that they were playing and it would be a Slytherin thing to do to betray Harry in the same way.

In fact, she would most likely smile at him and told him that she was proud that she was having a good influence at him if he betrayed her. Well, after the initial anger went away that is. For a few seconds he almost reconsidered, but eventually he just watched her crawl away and waited until she was halfway to the next bush before making a run for the other side. It was only ten feet, so he simply watched Sirius and Alice again for the right moment, before running for it. He was actually relieved when he jumped out of the ditch. Half-way there.

He walked through the trees and found a table filled with trophies behind it. He picked up one of the small cups and when he turned back he saw another student leaving the trees. It took him a few seconds to recognize Ron Weasley. He also had his face covered by a handkerchief, but his black hair made it even harder to recognize him. Harry waited until Ron had reached the table as well before softly asking: 'How did you manage to change your hair colour?'

'I didn't.' Ron shrugged, 'I asked Fred to do it when I saw the two of them changing their own hair. They did Ginny's as well.'

'Nice.' Harry replied, he was lucky enough to have dark hair of course. But he figured bright red hair would have been a disadvantage.

Ron grinned: 'Did you notice their first attempt? They tried to cause a distraction with some kind of prank product. Your mother still caught them and took three more points because they 'endangered' other students crossing.'

Harry smiled, suddenly happy that he had not risked Daphne's crossing. Then he said: 'I guess we should head back.'

'Yeah.' Ron grimaced: 'I'm on minus two now. But if I manage to return this one I'll be above zero again… It is something.'

Harry just nodded and since Ron did not ask about his own score he simply went back to the ditch. He looked at the bright gold trophy and pulled his shirt collar forward before dropping it in there. It was rather uncomfortable to feel it against his skin, but with his shirt put tight behind his belt it would not fall. And at least it would not shine in the faint starlight.

Once he was back at the ditch he found that his mother had replaced Alice. He remembered how easily she had been able to find the snitch from when he had played quidditch against her, and decided it was not a smart idea to take the same way back. Instead, he moved to his right, where Sirius was still patrolling and crossed past him without moving into the ditch. Eventually he noticed that Remus was on Sirius' other side, and although he was somewhat worried about the werewolfs senses he decided to try and cross here.

Once again, he studied the ditch and noticed that he could take a somewhat diagonal route through seven bushes that were not too far from each other. Obviously, Sirius and Remus had realised this as well and they paid a lot of attention to that line. Eventually, Harry decided to take a less guarded route through four other bushes, although the distances between them were almost twice as big. And two of them were actually on the same height inside the ditch, he would just have to cross between them to reach the last one.

Again, he waited for Sirius to catch someone while Remus' back was turned to him before sprinting for his first cover. Once there he found out that this bush was actually too thick to easily enter, so he could only hug to its side and hope nobody would notice him. He took a risk and quickly sneaked towards the next bush, which was relatively close to him anyway. He dived flat on his belly when Sirius' light beam shot towards him and only just avoided a groan when the small trophy pressed into his chest. He did not move a muscle while the beam passed over him.

As soon as the darkness returned he quickly belly-crawled to the second bush and only stopped moving when he was inside it. He waited for his heartbeat to return to normal and somewhat wondered how fast it would beat if he ever tried something like this for real. Now he had to turn left and run for another bush. This meant that the bush that he was now hiding in would block Remus line of sight, as long as he steered for the far side of the next bush at least. He simply waited for Sirius to capture somebody else again before running for it.

Again, he found an occupied bush. This time he had to share a very small hiding area with Justin Finch-Fletchley. Who was only at the camp during the evenings, he was spending most of the summer vacation to catch up with his classes. Harry wondered how that would work out for him tomorrow, it was almost two am by now. Justin looked puzzled when he did not see a trophy while Harry was clearly heading for the way back. But again, no words were exchanged and both of them simply looked around to wait for the right moment. Harry decided his moment had came when both Remus' and Sirius' lights quickly crossed the area before him before they disappeared again. He ran for it and almost cursed when he had to jump over Ernie MacMillan, who had apparently been crawling towards the bush that Harry had just left. He wondered if Ernie had made a noise to attract the light beams somehow, but figured he should have heard it as well if that was the case. He kept on running and leapt out of the ditch to arrive between the protecting trees of the start side again. With a relieved sigh he walked to another table, reached into his shirt and put the trophy on top of it.

'Well done Harry. Five points!' A female voice said, and surprised he looked up to see Hermione's mother walking towards him. He had been so focused on the table that he had not really looked around, but at least he was safe here.

'Thanks.' He replied, 'How long do we have to go?'

Edna looked on her watch: 'Only twenty minutes, you want to make another try?'

Harry frowned, they had told him it would be a three hour practise. So he had almost used all of it for one safe crossing. He just shrugged and figured he would not take unnecessary risks for a second trophy, most likely he would only be caught if he tried to cross the ditch in ten minutes. 'I think I'll just wait here.'

'Alright then. So how many times were you caught?' Edna asked.

'I wasn't, but I only returned one trophy.' Harry replied.

She looked surprised: 'I see. Impressive, most people got caught several times. Hermione told me she had been caught three times, but she returned her second trophy at that moment. She left for a third one some thirty minutes ago.'

Harry nodded: 'Yeah, I guess I am not going to win. But it was fun!'

'That is the most important part.' Edna agreed before she walked towards another table. Harry did not really agree, he thought the most important thing was the practise. But he did not feel like arguing about it. Beside that, he never was really sure about how much exactly Hermione's parents knew about the situation in the wizarding world. So he just waited for the time to pass. Eventually he found out that he was the only one who was not caught at all. He was also one of the few ones to return only one trophy though, but his five points still got him a position in the middle. Surprisingly enough Luna Lovegood had won with twelve points.

It was already the last evening of the camp. And they were all gathered around a huge campfire. Hermione's parents had brought marshmallows, and all the kids simply ignored their warning about how bad they were for your teeth and happily held their sticks above the fire while talking about the last week. It had been great fun again, with a lot of duelling, quidditch, paintball, games and talking. And last night they had repeated the ditch-crossing game from the third night. This time, Harry had tried for more speed and was caught four times, he still finished third with eleven points though.

Harry was a bit sad that camp was almost over, but at least he had something to look forward to. The adults had agreed to all spend a week at a beach house in Italy that belonged to the Black family. It was by now heavily warded by goblins and everybody thought it would be safe enough for their families.

Still, that was a few weeks away. Right now Neville and Harry were talking with Seamus and Dean. The last one was telling them about an old guy named McDonald who apparently had a farm with all kind of animals. It was supposed to be a song, but Harry did not really get it. Just when they got Dean crazy enough to start singing it a loud gong sounded.

Everybody quietened down and looked around in excitement, wondering what would happen now. But Harry suddenly felt worried, his father had once told him what that gong meant. And sure enough he saw his parents talking with a frantic Timmy. Most of the other adults had gathered around them, and two of the aurors were walking away and seemed to be talking to the air.

More and more students seemed to realize that something was not going according to plan. And when James finally turned to them they were all very quiet. James frowned and looked worried when he said: 'We just received a message that Longbottom Manor is under attack by three death eaters.'

Next to Harry Neville started to say something, but he stopped himself when James continued: 'Augusta was quite calm about it, apparently they were not attacking the house yet. But Hestia is calling reinforcements from the ministry anyway.' Hestia Jones was one of the three aurors that had joined Tonks this year for additional protection. Harry did not really know her, since Tonks was the only auror who had really attended the camp. The other three had been on patrol duty most of the time, but they had been invited to the campfire. 'And Frank and Alice just went home to help her. However, Timmy here-' He pointed to the house elf, 'just reported some activity outside our own walls. So far, we have no idea what is going on and there is no reason to be worried yet. It could be a few passers-by.'

Harry frowned, he could not remember the last time that Timmy had been worried about random people walking past the house. But maybe he was a bit more easily worried right now because he had heard about Longbottom Manor? Most of the students simply looked at each other in wonder, not sure what to think. Although a few of them were already talking about the news. Harry was still putting his thoughts together when a voice, he thought it was Ginny's but could not be sure, shouted: 'Look, fireworks!'

Green coloured beams where flying towards the house. Above the outer walls they crashed into the wards and turned into bright circular spots that disappeared after a few seconds. Harry softly cursed, he was quite sure that those beams were no fireworks. He ran towards his parents, maybe he could help somehow. He knew the area better than the other students after all. He arrived just in time to hear Shacklebolt, the darkskinned auror with his deep voice, saying: 'Are you sure there is no way to evacuate the kids?'

Next to him Lily shook her head: 'You were there when we decided to close the floo to any other location but Longbottom Manor during camp. And the apparation and portkey wards are still in place. We just did not expect our safety house to be attacked at the same time… You think we were betrayed?'

'I don't know Lily.' Shacklebolt slowly replied, 'I just heard that several other houses were attacked tonight, although the attackers seemed to disappear after the aurors arrived. Most likely to attack another house instead. It is possible that the same will happen at Longbottom Manor.'

Lily shook her head again: 'As long as we don't hear from Frank or Alice I am not going to send the kids away. And it will take hours to remove the protections from the floo. So we can't send them somewhere else. At least here we know what is happening.'

Suddenly Timmy appeared next to her. The house elf seemed a lot calmer now and said: 'James asked me to tell you that he is activating the defences. He wanted you to tell the kids to be careful and to keep them out of the gardens.'

'Yes, of course.' Lily nodded, she looked at Harry and said: 'Can you take care of that?'

'Sure.' Harry nodded, 'Is there anything we can do to help?'

'I just hope that they will flee when the aurors show up. The wards should be able to hold for a while.' Lily replied, 'If they break, you lead the other kids into the house.'

'Alright.' Harry agreed. He did not really like the idea of leaving his parents alone. But after watching the fight in the chamber of secrets he was quite sure he was not yet able to stand next to them in a fight. He walked back to the others, who were excitedly pointing to the host of moving statues. Especially the two huge stone dragons that were just walking around the house drew a lot of attention. Harry cleared his throat a few times until everybody looked at him and said: 'According to my mother the wards seem to hold for now, and they expect the attackers will leave when the aurors show up. Until then, we should stay right here. The garden is rather dangerous now for anyone who is not part of the family.'

To his surprise most of the others seemed rather calm about it. Hermione popped up next to him and explained: 'I told them the wards should easily hold a small group of attackers, unless Voldemort himself showed up.'

'Look!' A voice shouted and the two of them turned back to the wards and saw that a much larger beam had joined the earlier attacks. Next to Harry Hermione whispered: 'Oh, crap!' And for a moment Harry was tempted to laugh. He could not remember ever hearing her curse. Now the talking behind them grew more anxious, and Harry wondered what he could do. To his relief his mother and Shacklebolt suddenly showed up next to him, quickly followed by his father and Sirius. James was the first to speak: 'Remus and Tonks are adding some extra wards to the house so the kids will be safe.' He looked to the attack and frowned: 'Is that…'

'We think so.' Lily agreed. 'And Timmy says the wards will go down all too soon. But Kingsley had an idea about how the kids could help before they retreat into the house.'

Everybody looked at the auror who turned to Harry and said: 'I noticed some of you used the protego spell during the duels earlier this week. How many of you can use that spell?'

Harry shrugged: 'All of us. Well beside the few younger brothers and sisters who have not been to Hogwarts yet. But most of them don't even have wands yet.'

Shacklebolt looked surprised: 'They teach that in first year now?' Before Harry could explain about the DA the man continued: 'Anyway, listen to me kids. There is a variation of the protego spell that can help to reinforce the wards. The formula is protego maxima, and there is no wand movement involved. Just point your wand to the area that is under attack and cast the spell. Think you can do that?'

There were a few 'yes, sir's and several nods. Most of the students, including Harry, simply pointed their wand in the right direction. James stopped them: 'Wait a moment.' Then he pointed his own wand, mumbled some long unintelligible words and made a complicated wand movement. After twenty seconds he said: 'Right, go for it!'

'Protego maxima!' More than fifty voices shouted. And although only half of them immediately repeated the spell soon enough everybody understood the idea and a steady stream of light blue spells flew towards the wall. Next to Harry Sirius asked James: 'What did you do?'

'I created a magnifying field. For the death eaters those spells will look bigger now, and since this is one of the few spells were size does matter…' James replied.

'Brilliant.' Shacklebolt agreed in his deep voice. 'I hope the kids can keep on going for a while, this way the attackers have to drain their magic while we stay fresh.'

Harry wondered why he would not be able to keep on going. It was not like the spell was really taxing him. However, he did notice that some of the others had to lower their speed after a while. Only a few minutes later the attacking beams suddenly disappeared though, and a few seconds later Timmy appeared and called: 'The evil wizards have gone!'

There was a lot of cheering all around him. And Sirius shouted: 'Voldemort and his death eaters were scared away by a group of kids! I wish we could get this in the newspapers somehow!'

The cheerful atmosphere increased even more when Frank and Alice returned and informed them that the attackers had only done some superficial damage to the buildings at Longbottom Manor. Susan cheekily commented that the only thing that the death eaters had achieved was that their marshmallows had melted into the fire. It was a good thing that the Grangers brought quite a lot of the sweet treats. During the rest of the night only Hermione looked rather worried; her parents kept talking with Remus and Lily and barely looked up from that conservation.

_A/N: I am not totally happy about how that second scene turned out. It looked great in my head, then I wrote it and read it and was a bit disappointed;) I gave it a few tries, but this is the best I can do. Normally I would throw it aside for a week or two and give it another try, but that would ruin the update rhytm;)_

_Nice amount of reviews again:_

_Snakefang93: I think most of the kids are a bit too young to really get worked up about whatever the newspaper says. But maybe a bit more panic would have been better. _

_Deant33: I'll see what I can do;) And about Neville and Susan… maybe, maybe not..._

_Mwinter1, Rk-writer, Blue Luver5000, Zeynel, Snowball1982: Thanks!_

_Magical fan18: But if James is the fifth year DADA teacher there is no reason for Umbridge to show up… Or at least, the ministry would have to think of another excuse._

_Kisa Black: I originally planned to add Ron to the group during first year. But it just did not really work out, four seemed to be more than enough. Especially since I have to take in account that eventually girlfriends/boyfriends may have to be included… _

_Throckmorton: Yeah, it seemed to make sense. Not sure if it really works the same way as silent spellcasting though, but it gives the same advantages at least;)_

_Sanbeegoldiewhitey: But even if Ginny and Harry end up together in my story (not saying that it will happen;)), their relation will be different from the one in canon…_

_Bookivore: oh, I thought cya was an actual word;) I'll try to keep it in mind. In my defence, I obviously meant the Canadian Youth Assocation._


	41. They did what?

**They did what?**

It was two days after the attacks, and James and his friends were meeting with the headmaster once again. The man was accompanied by Sturgis Podmore. A square-jawed wizard with thick straw coloured hair, which made sense since the man had offered his own home as headquarters to Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix. It was actually hidden behind a fidelius charm, and James had only read the address some five minutes before coming here. He wondered if Dumbledore would allow them to remember the location. He did not really expect an oblivation spell, but he could see the headmaster casting a new fidelius charm. Or maybe move the headquarters to a bigger building. Podmore's house was nice enough, and rather big for a single family. But James could imagine it would be quite cramped with all the order members around. That is, if the order had around the same amount of members as it had during the seventies.

Still, the room was big enough for only six visitors. There was a large round dark oak table and all eight of them gathered around it. As usual, it was Dumbledore who started the meeting: 'I heard that your houses also were attacked during the weekend?'

Most of them nodded but Sirius replied: 'Well, beside our house. Apparently Voldemort did not want to anger the head of the DMLE too much yet.' They all frowned when Podmore winced at Sirius use' of the dark lords name, but none of them said anything about it.

'Do you have any idea what the purpose of those attacks was?' Frank asked, 'The attack on Longbottom Manor was pitiful. And from what Neville told me Lionfire Hall also was not really threatened.'

'I am not sure if I would consider any attack that involves Voldemort as nonthreatening.' James dryly added, 'But to be honest we did manage to scare him away quite easily. Maybe to easy.'

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully: 'I went to assist at the Abbott household when the order received information that it was under attack. I arrived just in time to see the death eaters flee, so I helped with the cleaning. There was a large fire around their shed, nothing too dangerous but they lost the building and there were some minor burns…' He shook his head and focused on the here and now again: 'So far, I have two theories about that night. At first I thought he was pulling away the aurors to prepare his main strike. Since Voldemort himself eventually showed up at Lionfire Hall that would mean that your house was his main target. But although I admit that I am impressed by your clever use of a magnifying field, it still seems he retreated a bit too fast. So now I think that he is trying to lull us into a false sense of security?'

'By attacking us?' Alice was the one who put words to the group's surprise.

'Yes. I know it sounds strange. But my sources at the ministry told me that Malfoy has been explaining to Fudge that there was no reason to worry about such small scale attacks. And that if this was the best that the escaped death eaters could do the ministry should not waste money on more aurors. Apparently the minister agreed with him.' Dumbledore explained.

Sirius nodded: 'Yeah, Amelia actually mentioned that to me. She seemed quite upset that she could not just throw Malfoy out of the building. She tried to build a case against him after the whole basilisk thing with his son, but nothing seems to stick to that man.'

James frowned; he really wanted Amelia to attend meetings like this one. She would offer an interesting viewpoint from inside the ministry, and beside that she had a very sharp mind anyway. But she was determined not to get too involved with the 'militia's' around the Potters and Dumbledore. She was afraid it would hurt her position at the ministry, and she was most likely right. Once again James told himself he should use his own family's influence at the political level a lot more, and once again he immediately forgot about it. Politics just was not really his thing.

'It is amazing that Fudge believes things like that.' Podmore added, 'You'd think eight attacks against pureblood families on one night would be enough for an alarm.'

'I am sure Malfoy's bank account would agree with you.' Remus dryly commented. 'Do you have any idea about what Voldemort-' Podmore winced again '-wants to do next Albus?'

Albus shook his head. 'Nothing specific. Sadly, we have not been able to get a spy into his organisation. I can only guess that he is trying to gather allies while building up his own strength. We sent an envoy to the giants and the vampires already, hopefully we can at least keep them neutral. Remus, I was wondering if-'

'No Albus.' Remus interrupted, 'The werewolves pretty much hate me since I, unlike most of them, have a rather comfortable life. Beside that, I do not have the time next to preparing for DADA.'

With a slow nod Albus replied: 'I see, I thought that maybe… Well, anyway, do you know of someone else that could approach the werewolves?'

Remus thought about it for a few seconds: 'Hardly… It is not like I know any of them very well. Hagrid might actually be your best bet, they will respect his physical power enough to at least listen to him. Although I am not quite sure if they would believe him…' He snorted, 'Actually, after all the anti-werewolf legislation of the last few years I would be surprised if they believed anyone.'

'Hagrid also is quite busy though.' The headmaster replied vaguely before pulling his watch out of his pocket. It was one of those old fashioned ones with loads of hands and planets. James' father used to have a similar one, but he himself simply used a muggle watch. It was a lot easier. Albus studied the watch for a few seconds before he said: 'Which reminds me that we should head to Hogwarts and see what kind of security the ministry is willing to provide for next year.'

Remus also looked on his watch, which was muggle style as well, and nodded reluctantly: 'I guess so.'

'Before you go Albus… is there anything we can do to help the order?' Lily asked.

The headmaster looked thoughtful: 'Well, I guess we could use a few extra wands for guard duty.'

'Guard duty?' Lily wondered.

'Yes, we have a guard stationed near the department of mysteries.' Albus nodded, 'We are quite sure that Voldemort wants to find out the full prophecy, and it is recorded in the hall of prophecies after all.'

'Sounds like a good idea.' Sirius agreed, but Remus frowned: 'Aren't the prophecies magically protected anyway? If I remember alright only the people who are mentioned in the prophecy can take it of the shelves?'

'That is correct.' Albus simply agreed.

Now it was James who frowned: 'But then why guard it? If any of the lower death eaters shows up it is not a problem anyway. And if Voldemort himself shows up… Well, I do not want to criticize the members of the order, but if it is the same group as during the seventies only you would have a chance of stopping him.' He nodded to the headmaster before he added: 'Maybe Moody could keep Voldemort occupied long enough until reinforcements arrive, but I doubt it.'

The shocked expression on the headmasters face would have been funny if the topic was not so serious. Eventually he shook his head and said: 'I can not believe none of us saw that.'

Sirius shrugged: 'I missed it as well, but I want to add that the ministry will definitely freak out if they find members of the order inside their building. So if they can not do much good anyway it might be better to recall those guards.'

'Yes, I guess so.' Albus agreed, then he turned to Podmore: 'Sturgis? Could you be so kind to inform the others?'

'Of course, headmaster.' The blond man agreed.

'Thank you. I am afraid that Remus and I will have to hurry to Hogwarts now.'

'Feel free to use the floo.' Podmore shrugged, which the two teachers immediately did. The other six politely talked for a few minutes, but it soon became clear that Podmore had not much in common with the others, and they quickly excused themselves. Frank, Alice and Sirius were all heading back to their own homes, Frank and Alice to oversee the construction of the additional wards around Longbottom Manor that they had ordered after the attack and Sirius to brief Amelia about this meeting. They all agreed that it was a good idea to keep her informed as well, and she also provided them with inside information from the ministry after all, so it was only fair.

All the kids were at Lionfire Hall at the moment though. Timmy had kept an eye on them during the meeting, although James had no doubt that the kids would not do anything stupid. He was still surprised when he found the four of them seated on a blanket in the grass near one of the large dragon statues. They were animatedly discussing something and shifting through a lot of books. Suddenly he remembered how the four of them had been studying their animagus lessons during the last few weeks, he could only guess that they were working on that again. They were still too far away to actually hear their words or see what books they had spread out.

Next to him Lily sighed. He looked at her and saw a worried expression on her face. With a few steps he was behind her and wrapped his arms around her. After a few seconds she relaxed and leaned back to him. 'What's wrong Lily?' He whispered.

'Nothing.' Lily replied, but after a few seconds she added: 'It's just… Look at them.' She pointed to the four kids. 'They seem so happy, but all too soon they will have to face Voldemort and his followers. Or at least, Harry will… but I can't see the others standing back when it happens. What you said about only Dumbledore and maybe Moody being able to stand against him made me realise how much Harry still has to learn.'

James nodded, he had often pondered similar questions. Eventually he said: 'He did it in the original timeline as well though. And I am sure that he is a better wizard right now than he would have been otherwise.'

'I know.' Lily agreed, 'But sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing all those years ago.'

'What?' A perplexed James replied, 'How can you say that?'

With a shrug his wife answered: 'I know, it's stupid. But I can't help but worry that we took some special quality or experience from Harry and that it will turn out to be the missing link he would need to destroy Voldemort.'

For a few seconds James tried to work out if that made any sense. Then he shrugged it away and turned back to his wife: 'Can you really imagine any quality or experience that would matter more than Harry's improved skills and his group of friends? Not to mention our own efforts? The six of us form quite a nice ally for Harry.'

'I know.' Lily said, 'I just can't keep wondering. I guess it will only stop when we finally get rid of Voldemort. Especially when something happens, like with the basilisk… In the original timeline Harry pretty much destroyed the beast and the memory of Voldemort on his own, this time we did a lot of it… Does that mean we deny him learning experiences?'

Again James could only shrug: 'He still was the one to take down the basilisk if you think about it. And to be honest I think he learned a lot of how we acted during the whole thing, he asked me a few very intelligent questions about magical fights.'

Lily turned her head to look up to him: 'Oh, so it was not just me. I am glad he is taking the whole thing serious though, it makes it much easier.'

James nodded: 'Yeah, did you notice his performance during the first ditch crossing game? He was not caught but only crossed once. I would not have had that patience when I was his age. I think he really took it as a serious practise.' Part of him felt a bit upset that his son was not taking every opportunity to have fun. But he guessed it was for the best.

'Oh, so that is why I was able to catch him twice during the second game.' Lily replied, 'I did wonder-'

She was interrupted by loud shouts from the four kids. Both of them looked up and saw the other three standing around Hermione, all of them seemed rather excited. 'You think we should go and see what happened?' Lily wondered.

'Nah, they seem more happy than panicked. Maybe they found some information they had been searching for a long while or so?' James replied. To be honest, he could only imagine one thing that should have caused such a reaction during animagus research, but it was impossible for second years to get that far. Still, he tried to see if he could see Hermione's arms, but she had her back turned to them and kept her arms in front of her.

They waited patiently and after a while Harry stood up. He seemed to concentrate on something while the others looked at him. Suddenly his right arm changed into a huge brown and white wing. Lily softly whispered: 'Oh my, he did it. Looks like some kind of eagle.'

James was too flabbergasted to reply. Instead he watched in wonder how Harry was experimentally waving his wing around, judging by the reactions from the others it caused quite a lot of wind. Eventually he simply said: 'Well, it does make me feel better about Harry's chances.' When Lily looked up to him in wonder he added: 'Sirius and I were in fifth year when we finally managed to change just our hands, and we tried real hard for years.'

Lily smiled evilly: 'So, are you upset that your son beat you and the other transfiguration wonder boy?'

With a loud laugh James admitted: 'A bit. But mostly I'm just proud of him. Let's see what happens next.'

They kept on watching, and James had to admit to himself that it was a rather nice feeling. He had his arms wrapped around his wife and was just looking at how his son and his friends were working together. It felt peaceful somehow. Harry knelt down, his wing oddly stretched sideward and was explaining something to Neville and Susan. Once again he wondered if Hermione had already changed an arm, but she kept her back towards them.

After some thirty minutes Susan stood up, although pretty much all her body shouted out that she did not feel sure about it. She seemed to concentrate for a while, but nothing happened. Both Harry and Hermione stood up and started to talk to her. James finally managed to catch a glimpse of Hermione's arm and he said: 'It looks like Hermione transformed her right arm as well. I can't see what it is though.'

'It looks like it shrunk a lot, so not a big animal I guess.' Lily agreed.

Amazingly enough Susan also managed to change her right arm. From this distance James only noticed that its colour changed to a dark brown. He was hardly surprised anymore when Neville followed the example of the other three and also turned his arm into a dark brown paw, although it seemed much more massive than Susan's.

James shook his head: 'I sometimes wonder if all kids could achieve the same if they received the same training or if we simply have an exceptionally talented group of kids here.'

'It is a little bit of both I think.' Lily replied, and as usual James could only agree with his wife. They kept on watching while the four kids dived into their books again. Every now and then one of them would put a book aside and focus on his or her right arm for a while, but nothing seemed to happen. After a while James said: 'It seems they can't turn it back.'

'Isn't that dangerous?' Lily wondered.

'Not really, the first time Sirius and I transfigured our arms it took us more than a day to turn them back. We were lucky that it happened on a Friday.' James explained.

'I should work on my own animagus form sometime.' Lily replied, then she asked: 'How come that the two of you managed to transform at the same time? And that the four of them reached that part within an hour from each other as well?'

James hesitated, he was not really sure but he gave it a try anyway: 'I think because that first transformation is a very difficult one. You have all kind of doubts and feelings that you have to overcome. Same as with all human transfiguration, remember seventh year?' Lily nodded and James continued: 'I remember how I explained the feeling of changing my arm to Sirius, and suddenly he did the same. Peter still needed several months though. The odd thing is that I can barely remember how I felt at the time now. It is such a weird feeling… So, I guess it really helps to study your animagus form together with somebody else who can explain what happens to him.'

Lily nodded and they kept watching in silence. After another thirty minutes or so Harry stood up and waved to them. At first, he used his wing which looked rather odd, but then he changed to his left arm and made a gesture for his parents to join them. They quickly walked to the kids and smiled: 'Well done! We expected it would take you another year at least to get this far.' Lily smiled, before any of them could reply she continued: 'Let me see what we have… Harry looks like some kind of eagle with that huge wing. Doesn't it feel uncomfortable?'

Harry shrugged, which looked really odd with one wing and one arm, 'Not really, but it is weird.'

'And Susan seems to be some kind of dog.' James said, while studying her new paw which was covered in short dark brown hairs. The foot was clearly a dogs. 'Sirius is going to be very happy about that.'

Susan only smiled and so Lily continued: 'And Hermione? A cat I think?'

'I think so too.' Hermione beamed, proudly showing her mixed gray and black cat paw. 'I always loved cats, and it will be very useful for stealth I think.'

James grinned: 'Yeah, you and Susan will draw less attention than Harry the Eagle or Neville-' He studied Neville's large long haired brown paw for a few seconds, '- the Bear. But their shapes have their own advantages. Well done all of you.'

'Thanks.' Neville shyly smiled: 'There is only one problem, we can't work out how to return it.'

James grinned: 'It is actually rather easy. Which is most likely the reason why nobody cared to mention it in one of the books.'

'That does not make sense.' Hermione protested, 'Why would they keep something out of the instructions?'

'Basically because it is very unusual to do something like this without an instructor who would help you through those steps.' James shrugged, 'It took Sirius and me a day to find out how to change our arms back. But I can help you easily enough. Ready?'

They all nodded and James continued: 'Great, put your arms, wings and paws out wide and close your eyes.' He waited a few seconds before he went on: 'Now, move every finger of your left hand one by one. Great, again. Now, bent your left elbow. And stretch it again. Fingers again. Now, move both the fingers of your left hand and your right hand.' Some of them started to protest, but he interrupted them: 'I know, I know. Just try to wriggle the fingers of your right hand as well. Feel what happens at your left hand and try to copy the feeling to your right hand.' He saw claws and feathers moving instead. But he patiently waited until all four of their animal limbs stopped moving while the fingers of their left hands were still twisting. 'Great, now both your elbows.' Again he waited, but this time when the feathers and paws stopped moving human arms appeared again. Once again, Hermione was the first to manage it. Apparently she did not notice the difference and she kept moving both her arms. Susan did the same when she managed to change her paw back, but as soon as Harry's wing disappeared he stopped moving, opened his eyes and looked at the girls in wonder. A few seconds later Neville's paw also changed back and James said: 'Well done all.'

The other three opened their eyes and looked at their hands in wonder. Susan was the first to comment: 'That was easy!'

'Yup.' James agreed, 'And the good thing is that you can use the same trick to change your other arm. Although I'd advice you to wait a few hours before trying that. When you do, simply try to move the claws or muscles or whatever you find that can move in your animal limb and then copy the feeling to your human arm.'

'I am really proud of all of you.' Lily smiled, 'And I think the others will be as well, why don't we have a party tonight to celebrate it? Maybe your parents could bring the barbecue again Hermione?'

'That sounds like fun!' Hermione enthusiastically agreed, and judging by the smiles of the other three they all agreed.

Again Lily smiled, 'Great, I'll ask Timmy to get the necessary food and stuff.'

'Can we do anything to help?' Susan politely asked.

'No, that's okay. You kids just enjoy your success.' Lily replied. Then she suddenly looked worried, that all followed her eyes and saw that Remus was marching towards them. He seemed upset about something and as soon as he joined them he said: 'You are not going to believe what the ministry did this time!'

'What is it?' James asked, hoping that they had not interfered in Remus' appointment as a teacher. The werewolf had been looking forward to it for a long time.

Remus growled: 'Next year there will be no additional aurors at Hogwarts because the DMLE lacks the capacity. However, since there are still so many death eaters on the run Fudge insisted on extra protection. So now he wants dementors to patrol around the castle.'

'He did what?' Lily almost shrieked.

The kids looked at each other in wonder. Then Hermione said: 'Aren't dementors the creatures that guard Azkaban?'

'Yes, and they are very dangerous.' Lily shortly agreed, 'Dumbledore can't have agreed with that?'

'He didn't. He absolutely forbade Fudge to let the dementors enter Hogwarts grounds.' Remus replied, 'But the minister simply told him that he had nothing to say about the area surrounding Hogwarts. And the dementors would patrol that area to keep the death eaters away from the school.'

'That's something at least.' James said. He really did not like the ideas of dementors coming anywhere near Harry and the other kids. After a while he said: 'Maybe you should teach the kids how to cast a patronus Remus. That would be a nice summer assignment.'

Remus looked at him in wonder: 'The patronus charm is very advanced though, I am not sure if they are ready.'

James grinned: 'Why don't the four of you show Remus what you just did?'

The four kids all grinned back at him and simultaneously they all changed their right arm back into their animal shapes. Remus jumped two feet into the sky in surprise and gazed at every animal limb in wonder. Eventually he shook his head: 'That is amazing. Sirius and James needed a lot more time to achieve that much.' James mock glared at his friend, but Remus simply continued: 'I admit that if you can do this you have a good chance to manage the patronus charm as well.'

'What is the patronus charm anyway?' Harry wanted to know.

While Remus started his explanation about the magical guardian Lily pulled James away to find Timmy and Jenny. Once again, he could only agree with her. A nice party was something they all could use.

_A/N: I figured it was about time that James got a chapter again. Although it seems he only gets attention when there are meetings;) Poor guy. Oh, and animagus forms! Well, parts of them anyway. Hope you liked them. The only thing I worry about now is if I should let Hermione buy Crookshanks now, the poor cat might be freaked out when his servant turns into a cat as well… Although I guess that without a 'sick' Scabbers she won't even be in that pet shop at the right time anyway. _

_Again, a nice amount of reviews, you guys all rock;)_

_Naruhinafan86: Both are still possible. In fact, I think I know who Harry's first girlfriend will be. Although most likely that will only happen in fourth year. And nope, still not telling;)_

_Stonegnome1: With the ministry still not accepting that Voldemort returned it is unlikely to make the prophet anyway. Beside that, I don't think Sirius would really think about the long term results :P But no main event so far…_

_Happylady, Blue Luver5000, StormyFireDragon: Thanks!_

_Snakefang93: Well, you got your answer;) And it is unlikely that the order is going on a full out attack this time around. I don't really see why Dumbledore would suddenly turn all offensive. In fact, with Sirius, Remus and Tonks more focused on their own group the order might even turn more into a defensive/ intelligence gathering group. Anyway, I am afraid Malfoy will hang around for a while… but at least his son is heading to Durmstrang;)_

_Mojtaba13: The simple answer is that both Sirius and James are not interested in politics, they are more action focused. There is a bit more to it then that, but this is the most important reason. There will be some wizengamot action eventually;) Oh, and the ring horcrux was destroyed, just like the others that they have found so far._

_Teufel1987: Not sure if Harry can already conjure such a long rope after second year, let alone tie it to another tree that he can barely see in the darkness. Anyway, that would ruin the idea of the game. And it would make for a very boring chapter;) But sure, in a real situation it might be a more practical approach. Although if I were Harry I would simply summon my broom instead of climbing over a rope._

_MSupernatural: Still not going to comment on the first pairing;) And I am not even sure if Harry will find true love immediately…_

_MAFITA: Yeah, the way I see it the death eaters are simply 'flexing their muscles' a bit while at the same time checking out some defences._

_Acacia Rose Masen: Thanks, I'm trying to turn Harry a bit more serious now. After all, he still has a lot to learn. _


	42. Harry's vacation

**Harry's vacation**

Harry shifted uncomfortably. He somewhat wondered why on earth he used to like climbing on the huge stone dragon's back near the quidditch pitch when he was a kid. The view was somewhat nice from twenty feet above the ground, but he could not find a comfortable place to sit or lie down. Most likely he had just enjoyed the idea of being a 'dragon rider' years ago.

It had seemed like a good idea to climb onto his old spot, and at least the hard stone somewhat distracted him. For the last few weeks he had found out that he got rather depressed when he was all on his own. He could not help replaying the awesome battle in the chamber of secrets in his mind eye, and he kept worrying about how he would never be ready for something like that. He was a decent student, but it seemed he still had so much to learn. Even with all the additional training that his parents had provided for him. And two out of seven Hogwarts years had already passed. If he remembered William's story alright he would most likely be forced into combat long before his seventh year.

He finally found a somewhat comfortable position and gazed at the almost cloudless sky for a while. Eventually he was disturbed by his mother's voice: 'Harry! What are you doing up there?'

It was a good thing that the dragon had a broad back, for Harry shifted almost a full foot aside when was startled out of his thoughts. After a few seconds he called: 'Nothing, just looking at the sky.'

There was a short silence and then his mother asked: 'Ah. Can you come down for a few seconds? I need to ask you a few things?'

Harry crawled back to the top of the dragon's tail and slid down it. He chuckled; this still was as fun as it used to be. Although he was not going to tell that to anyone. Once back on his feet he saw his mother looking at him with an oddly guarded expression. For a moment he felt worried, although he had no idea what could have happened. After a short silence Lily started: 'Look Harry, your father and I, and even Remus and the elves, noticed that you have been a lot less cheerful this summer. Is anything wrong?'

With a shrug Harry replied: 'Not really, I just was a bit bored.'

As usual his mother proved that she could see right through him: 'Uhhuh. And you were fretting about what you saw in the chamber, right? We noticed your questions…'

Again Harry shrugged and half protested: 'Well, I wanted to learn things, you know?'

'Of course.' Lily smiled, 'And they were good questions. Still, it is only natural that you worry about it. Believe me, so do we.' She noticed Harry's expression and quickly added: 'Not that we do not believe in you. You have all the building blocks of a great duellist.'

'I do?' Harry wondered, he was not sure what would be special about him.

'Of course.' Lily nodded, 'You have a serious amount of magical power for someone your age. Your magical understanding and knowledge also grow by the day. And beside that you are very fast and aware of the battlefield, why else would you be such a good seeker?'

'Right.' Harry half agreed, 'Still, I am quite sure I would not have lasted thirty seconds in that fight.'

'I don't know about that.' Lily grinned, 'They would still have to hit you. James and Sirius always tell me how difficult that is.'

Harry also grinned when he remembered the old 'lessons' in which those two had simply told the kids to dodge and started to fire mild hexes at them. It had been fun. Before he could say anything about it his mother continued: 'Anyway, you can't expect to be ready to face Voldemort by now. For now, you should focus on the basics. Especially, try to broaden your spell arsenal and keep working on those more realistic practises during the DA sessions. Your idea about whispered spell casting was really good, I've never heard about it before.'

'Are you sure we can't work on silent spell casting?' Harry asked.

His mother hesitated: 'To be perfectly honest, I would not even be surprised if some of you managed it way before sixth year. But there are very good reasons why it is usually only taught in that year. Basically your magical core is still growing too fast to really get it to work, it takes a lot of mental discipline to use your core without words, and if your core is still developing this fast you will have to relearn that trick every few weeks or months. So most likely it would be a waste of time to spend a lot of study on a very temporary benefit.'

'Ah.' He nodded. Remus had pretty much told him the same last week, but it never hurt to ask for another opinion. 'I guess our whispered spells will have to do for now then. I guess they give almost the same benefits.'

'True enough. Although silent spells are a bit faster as well.' Lily replied, 'But whatever… I came to talk about the next part of your education.'

Harry frowned: 'Third year you mean?'

'No, not really.' Lily vaguely replied, before she seemed to change the topic: 'Do you know what Severus and I have been doing during the last week?'

Harry needed a few seconds to remember that Severus was the name his mother used for professor Snape. It still seemed odd to him that the man even had a first name. To be honest he had been rather shocked when the man had suddenly turned up at Lionfire Hall during lunch and had politely talked with his parents and Remus about something. Harry had quickly decided not to join them. He had seen quite enough of the potions master during the school year. 'I did not even know you were doing something with him… I mean, I noticed you were away a lot of course, but I only saw him that one time.'

'Oh, didn't James or Remus tell you what I was doing?' Lily asked, clearly surprised. Then she shook her head and mumbled something under her breath before she continued: 'Well, I guess it is a nice surprise this way. We harvested the basilisk.'

Harry frowned: 'Harvested?'

'Yeah, we skinned it, took some of its blood and venom, eyes and fangs. Things like that.' His mother explained, and when she saw Harry's puzzled look she continued: 'Basilisks are very rare, and their parts are really useful in certain potions. So naturally Severus was rather interested in the carcass.'

'I guess I can understand that. But why would you have to help?' Harry wondered.

Lily hesitated: 'Well, there is an old law that says that the killer of such a monster decides what happens to it.' She raised her hand when Harry wanted to say something: 'You agreed when we decided not to mention that you actually were the one who killed it. You said you did not want the attention. So Severus contacted us instead.'

Harry reluctantly nodded, he still felt like they could have asked him behind Snape's back or something. Not that he really knew what to do with a dead basilisk, but still.

His mother just smiled and said: 'I think you will like what we got out of it though. You remember how big it was?' Harry snorted, he had no problem remembering that. Again his mother smiled: 'Sorry, stupid question. Anyway, we took its full skin.'

'The same skin that kept blocking your spells?' Harry wondered.

'Exactly.' Lily beamed, 'And next week Remus and Tonks will bring it to a magical armourer near Paris before they start their vacation. That armourer will turn it into very nice basilisk hide suits.'

'Oh, you are going to craft some magical armour? Cool!' Harry replied enthusiastically, trying to remember what he knew about basilisk armour, he was sure one of his books mentioned something about it.

'Some is not really the word I was looking for.' Lily grinned, 'There will be somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five suits. It is very hard to predict the exact number since every scale needs to be tested. I am sure you won't mind if we take six for Sirius, Remus, Frank, Alice, James and me?'

'Of course not.' Harry immediately replied.

'Great.' Lily replied, 'Now, four of the others of course go to you, Neville, Hermione and Susan. And those will be adjusted for your size of course. Which pretty much means they will have to return to the armourer twice a year or so until you all stop growing.'

'Cool!' Harry smiled, 'So what about the others? There should still be five to fifteen more?'

'Well, as I said a while ago… I was going to talk about the next part of your education. We want the four of you to take the third year to make a list of your fellow DA members.' Lily explained, 'The armours will only be finished at the end of the school year, due to some of the magic involved in the production. But at that time we want you to form a sort of elite inner group of DA members. The four of you are smart enough not to pick your friends but to aim for the best fighters and the most intelligent kids. Then in fourth year we are going to spend a lot of energy in training that small group, and every single one of them will be equipped in basilisk armour. Oh, and on a side note, try to pick kids your age or older. Again, there are reasons that we only step up your training in fourth year. Although girls from the year below you should be fine, they mature a bit faster… And I guess if there is a really talented boy in second year you should just invite him as well.'

Harry did not immediately reply, he was too busy imagining how they would look. Eventually he replied: 'Do the others already know about this?'

'Nope, but they do know about something else already.' Lily replied. Harry frowned at the vague answer and she continued: 'Sirius told us yesterday that the goblins finished with the wards on his beach house in Italy. We are heading there tomorrow and will stay for two weeks in total. Since I am afraid that this summer will be our last chance for a vacation for a few years.'

Harry cheered. This was almost better than the whole basilisk armour thing, he could barely remember his last vacation and was really looking forward to seeing the Adriatic sea.

— Two days later —

The first day of the vacation had simply flown by. They had arrived in Italy at about noon, and the kids had changed into their swimsuits in record time. Both Harry and Neville had been somewhat surprised when they noticed that the girls had changed a bit since the last time they went swimming. And Harry could only hope that he had not made too much of a fool of himself while staring at the girls and their bikinis, but since none of the marauders said anything he guessed he was fine.

The Black beach-house, which might as well have been called a beach-villa, was only a hundred yards from the beach. The beach itself was pure sand, and about two hundred yards wide. At both sides, large brown rocks formed a barrier that ran deep into the sea and reached to the walls that surrounded the beach-house. Sirius had assured them that both the land and water were warded against all kind of visitors, so they did not have to be afraid of anything as long as they did not leave the semi-enclosed bay that was formed by the brown rocks.

Harry only realised that Sirius had not mentioned that they should watch the marauders when a huge jet of water toppled him over. Soon enough the kids were uniting against the two marauders though. And Sirius quickly gave up when Hermione managed to freeze the water around him. He kept complaining that it was unfair though. And Harry even overheard him saying that it was a shame that Remus was in Paris.

They had kept swimming until they all were close to exhausted, and after a seaside dinner they had all retreated to their rooms for an early sleep. The next day had started with even more swimming, or tanning in case of the girls. But after lunch Lily had gathered them for some more patronus training, they still only managed a white mist but it seemed easier under the Italian sun somehow.

So it was in the evening of the second day that Harry finally managed to gather his three friends around him and explained them about the basilisk suits and his mother's request. They all were very excited about it, and immediately started to suggest a few names. But soon enough they calmed down a bit and Hermione started a list with all the DA members. She drew four small columns behind the names and told them that she would use those columns to keep track of all of their votes. Then there was a much broader column next to that for comments. They all agreed it was a good idea and that they would try to keep the paper updated during the school year.

It was interesting to see the differences in their opinions though. For example, Harry argued in favour of Luna Lovegood. Partly because he felt she earned one of those suits after what happened to her, but also because he was impressed by how well she did when he introduced whispered spell casting. Susan agreed with him and explained that she had once trained with the younger girl as well, but both Hermione and Neville were uncertain about her. On the other hand they all agreed on several people as well. Like Ron Weasley for example, who was one of the better fighters in the DA and who had shown a lot of talent in chess matches at Hogwarts and in other tactical board games during the summer camps. Of course, it also helped that he was most likely the guy they had most contact with outside their own clique. No one was surprised when Hermione argued in favour of Tracey Davis either, and they all agreed but made her add a comment that they had to wait and see how the girl would cope with her long absence of last year. Eventually Harry felt that it was a good thing they still had about a year to go to make a final selection. He had the feeling that there could be some surprises.

Still, for the next two weeks they barely talked about it. Their training regime was rather slow compared to what they were used to as well, they only focused on the patronus charm. Instead, they just enjoyed the sun, the sea, the beach and each others company. And of course, the four of them worked on some animagus training. Each of them had now managed to get two animal arms, but the legs evaded them for now. Harry had to practise while lying on his back, because his bird feet would not be able to support his still half human body. Sadly, lying on your back in the warm Italian sun did not really help in animagus training, although it would have been great for occlumency training a few years ago. He could almost feel his thoughts drifting away every now and then.

_A/N: And that was the last of the summer chapters. Somehow I finished second year with the idea that I would wrap up the summer vacation in one chapter… Shows how much I know;) Anyway, I am not going to predict how many chapters third year will take, but it will take a while before the final selection of the new 'elite DA'. So feel free to suggest who you want to join…_

_An amazing forty-three reviews this time, could be a new record. Of course, the majority of those reviews is from Alix33 and handles earlier chapters, but still;)_

_Naruhinafan86: I am not quite sure if the Lily of my story would have the patience to be a good politician. I mean, she might very well start using 'maxima bombarda' again if debates take too long ;) Beside that, would a muggleborn be accepted by the wizengamot?_

_Alix33: I am just going to say thanks for all the reviews here and send you a message with more feedback later;) Otherwise the A/N might get as long as the chapter._

_Blue Luver5000: Ah, but the patronus training might save his broom… Although it might be a bit too optimistic to expect him to fight of such a huge number of dementors with just some white mist._

_Deant33: Well, hope you enjoyed this one as well then._

_Happylady: Thanks! And I agree that the main focus on the story has shifted to Harry now. I'll try not to forget about James though._

_Snowball1982: Thanks!_

_PrincessKatAngela: Yeah, it happened during the early part of the summer vacation so Harry and Neville were still 12._

_MSupernatural: Both those things definitely helped yeah. And I am not sure about Lily becoming an animagus yet. If it happens it will most likely be off-screen until James mentions it or Harry finds out…_

_Teufel1987: But if they notice a flying broom they might as well notice someone crawling over a rope;) And it depends a bit on what rules the adults had mentioned before the game I guess. It is hard to avoid all possible simple magical solutions though, for example I always wondered why Harry did not try and summon the golden egg instead of summoning his broom during the first task._

_Mojtaba13: I think everybody is interested in saving their own lives though. James and the others are mainly focused on protecting and preparing Harry and his friends. Focusing on politics would take time away from either their own training or Harry's. Sure, some people would try and reach their goals through the wizengamot but this group won't :P Mainly because they are more action-oriented. _

_Beside that, I don't think they really complained about the number of aurors and stuff like that, it is mostly Amelia's opinion leaking through Sirius every now and then. They just complain about Fudge's incompetence in general, which is a common pastime in the muggle world as well;)_

_Sachaelle: In my story she already has an owl though, although it never really showed up during the story. After all, the mirrors are a much easier way to communicate. But they all got an owl before first year started. Still, she might like a cat as well… Maybe I'll just toss a coin to see if Hermione shows up with a cat carrier at the Hogwarts express;)_

_Amata0221: That pairing is still possible I guess, so keep your fingers crossed;)_


	43. New classes

**New classes**

Remus led the four kids into an empty train compartment right behind the locomotive and silently enlarged it. He helped them with their suitcases before he dropped into one of the corners and said: 'Wake me when we arrive or if something happens.'

The four of them simply nodded, they all knew that Remus was still recovering from his last transformation. Even with the wolfsbane potion it was still a painful and exhausting experience for the werewolf. He had assured them that they would not wake him with their talking, but out of respect they had decided to try and keep it down and not play exploding snap during the journey. And it was a good thing that Fred and George did not follow their younger brother and sister into the compartment. A few minutes later Daphne and Tracey also joined them, and Luna Lovegood silently followed the two of them. With nine students and one sleeping professor the enlarged compartment became rather full, and although several others came by and asked about their vacations none of them joined. Both Neville and Harry tried to ignore all the outcries about their tans, but Susan and Hermione seemed to enjoy it.

Most of the journey was spent on comparing vacations. It turned out that they had not been the only ones who made a trip. Ron and Ginny had visited their older brother Bill in Egypt and told all kind of stories about the pyramids and the desert heat. Strange enough the desert sun had not really tanned them, instead it had freckled them. Daphne and Tracey had spent part of the summer on the beaches of Spain, and they did get a tan. And Luna had been to Sweden with her father, apparently they had been looking for crumple-horned snorkacks, some kind of elusive magical creature. Harry was not sure what to make of it, but it seemed like Luna had enjoyed her vacation.

She was just explaining them the difference between the crumple-horned snorkack and the regular snorkack when the train suddenly stopped. Distant bangs and crashes told them that not all luggage had been as well secured as their own. Hermione frowned and looked outside: 'We can't be there yet? It is way too early.'

Suddenly the windows blackened and the entire compartment was darkened. Hermione leapt back from the suddenly dark window and crashed into Harry, Daphne and Tracey. Harry shouted in protest, apparently it was loud enough because Remus voice sounded: 'Quiet!'

Light returned to the compartment when the werewolf summoned some odd flames above his hand. Remus looked around to see what was going on and noticed that Ron had wiped a small area of the window clean. 'What do you see Ron?'

'I think people are boarding the train.' Ron replied, hesitation clear in his voice. 'It is hard to see.'

Remus nodded: 'Wands out, I'll go and talk with the driver.'

Harry already had his wand in hand, but he noticed that both of the Weasley's and Tracey still had to pull their own wands. Remus started to move towards the door, but suddenly it opened and a dark cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling filled the doorway. Its face was completely hidden under its hood, but a gray, slimy, scabbed hand moved out of its cloak. It was as if the creature felt Harry's gaze on its hand, and suddenly the pale appendage was withdrawn into the cloak.

The creature drew a rattling breath and suddenly the temperature in the compartment plummeted. Harry suddenly felt very cold, and the cold seemed to be within him as well. Remus shouted: 'It is a dementor, summon your patroni!'

Automatically Harry shouted: 'Expecto Patronum!' Although it took a lot of effort to remember the sunny beaches of Italy, which was the memory he usually used during practise. Still, a faint white mist appeared in front of him, and he saw similar mist clouds in front of Neville and Susan. Hermione needed to try twice more before she also created some mist. Strangely enough the cold faded as well, and Harry almost felt comfortable again. Well, as long as he ignored the dark cloaked dementor of course.

Remus spoke again: 'We are not hiding any of the escapees. Nor are any of the other students. Be gone!' Then he pointed his wand towards the dementor and a large silver figure sprung forward and scared the dementor away. It was almost too fast to see, but Harry knew that Remus' patronus took the form of a werewolf.

As soon as the dementor disappeared Remus summoned a bag from the luggage rack and started to rummage through it while he said: 'All four of you did great. It is really difficult to get any result when you encounter a dementor for the first time.' Hermione wanted to reply, but he withdrew a few large chocolate bars and pushed most of them in her hands: 'Here, divide those among you. It will help. I'll go talk with the driver now.'

Hermione shrugged and pointed her wand at the three chocolate bars she had just received. With a few flicks she created nine equal parts and handed them out: 'I guess we already used magic anyway… I wonder why the patronus spell didn't work for me though.'

'Was that a patronus spell?' A clearly surprised Tracey asked, 'That's supposed to be really advanced magic.'

'It is, that is why we only get mist so far instead of an actual guardian like Remus.' Harry replied, 'Or professor Lupin I should say.' Might as well get used to it now, he had only barely avoided a few 'mums' in DADA last year.

Harry bit in his chocolate while Susan took over, suddenly the last coldness in his body disappeared. 'We started working on it when we heard about the dementors guarding Hogwarts this year.' She explained, 'And we will try and teach it to the DA as well of course.'

'Cool.' Tracey smiled.

Daphne just shook her head: 'Sometimes I wonder what you guys are trying to achieve with the DA… Still, I have to admit that I really like it. My parents are jealous of me you know? They never had such a group when they attended Hogwarts.'

Harry and the others smiled, but Luna simply said: 'I like it as well, it is almost like having friends.'

This earned her some uncomfortable glances from the others although Ginny immediately replied: 'Not almost! I am your friend!'

'I know.' Was all that the blonde girl replied to that, and not for the first time Harry had to wonder about the odd Ravenclaw. He still had the feeling that she should be in the 'inner DA' next year, but she was different… After a few seconds he shook his head, he should not waste all his time judging everybody, it would only drive him crazy.

Before anyone could comment to Luna's last statement Remus entered the compartment again. He walked back to his own spot and explained: 'The dementors are gone. There were only a few of them, and the head boy and head girl organized a few seventh years and scared the others away. Apparently Lily taught them the patronus charm last year, remind me to thank her for that sometime.'

'Percy did that?' Ron asked, surprise obvious on his face.

'Percy?' Remus asked, 'Your brother?' After Ron's nod he continued: 'I thought he sm… looked like you. But yes, he acted very brave there.'

'Oh.' Was all that Ron had to say to that. Next to him Ginny just smiled.

The train started moving again, but it took a while before the talk also returned. In fact, Remus was already asleep again when Ron started to talk about Hogsmeade. This year they would be allowed to visit the all-magical town, and the third years happily shared their knowledge about the shops and buildings they wanted to visit. Ginny and Luna pouted that they could not yet go to Hogsmeade and made the third years promise to buy a lot of sweets for them during their visits.

— Two days later —

'Hey Susan, how was muggle studies?' Was Harry's way of greeting his friend when he sat down next to her at the start of their first arithmancy lesson.

'Oh, it was alright I guess.' Susan shrugged, 'We did not really do much yet, but professor Burbage asked what we already knew about muggles. She was actually impressed by what I knew already.'

Harry exchanged a grin with Hermione, who had sat down on Susan's other side, they both knew that Susan's knowledge about the muggle world was far from perfect. But he guessed it was much better than what some other purebloods who never ventured into the muggle world knew. For a moment he wondered if Ron had taken muggle studies, but before he could ask Susan about it their professor entered the class room and started the class by putting a thick book on every table.

Harry wondered how the spindly woman could carry all those heavy books, but then he noticed that she seemed to pull every book out of a very small bag which should barely be able to hold one. Her greyhaired face looked strong enough when she eventually turned to the class though, and in a crisp voice she started to talk: 'Welcome all, it is nice to see such a large class.' Harry frowned and looked around, there were only twelve students. Three Gryffindors, Five Ravenclaws and two each from Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Coincidentally all of them were part of the DA. It seemed a bit small to him. The professor continued: 'The year above you only has seven students for example. Anyway, my name is Septima Vector and I will be your arithmancy professor for the next few years.'

She scribbled her name on the blackboard before she continued: 'I am sure that all of you are good with numbers, otherwise you would never have chosen this subject. Still, there is a vast difference in the level of mathematics that third year students can handle. And while my subject ultimately focuses on spell creation we will at first have to work our way through the tomes that I just gave you.'

She smiled when some people gasped for air while looking at the thick book in front of them. Then she continued: 'It is not as bad as it looks, about eighty-five percent of it is theory. Or at least, it will be. Right now, eighty-five percent of the book is blank. If you look closely you can see some red pages spread through the book?'

Sure enough there were about forty red pages between the mass of brownish pages. Harry browsed towards the first red page and noted that all of the brown pages were indeed empty. On the red page he saw about twenty sums, they seemed simply enough… All of them were simple sums, ranging from 6 + 7 to 654 + 1889. Professor Vector waited a few moments until everybody reached the red page and explained: 'I am sure you all wonder about the easy sums. But the red pages will soon grow more complicated. This book is simply meant for practise. I want you to spend the rest of this class to work through as many red pages as you can, simply write the answers in the small boxes behind the sums.'

Hermione's hand shot into the air and when the professor nodded to her she asked: 'You mean that we can write in the book?'

'Yes, the red pages will be magically replaced for next year's class.' Professor Vector replied, 'The interesting part of this book is that as soon as you finish the sums, or cross the box at the bottom,' Harry quickly looked at the bottom of his page and saw a sentence saying "I do not know the answers to the sums", meanwhile the professor continued: 'the pages before the red page will be filled with the theory behind the sums. If you made any mistakes it will highlight parts of the theory for you to study. If you made too many mistakes or crossed the bottom box the unused red pages will close until the next class. What I want you to do is to use the rest of this class to work through as many red pages as you can, then for homework you will study and highlighted texts and work on until you fail a red page. The next few weeks we will make sure that everybody finishes the book, which mean that next week I will ask a few of you who advance very far into the book to help some of the others. So, is this clear to all of you?'

They all nodded and the professor smiled and said: 'Good, you can begin then.'

Next to Harry Susan and Hermione immediately started with the first red page, but Harry opened the book on the last red page first. He wanted to know if all of the book was going to be so easy. There was actually a bit of text before the first sum on this page, but Harry quickly skipped it and looked at the first sum. He blinked a few times and looked again, but it simply said 2X_4 _- Y =. He frowned and wondered what on earth those letters were doing there. Then he shrugged and went back to the first page, at least he knew for sure now that he would not finish the entire book today.

At the end of the class he had fought his way through the first ten red pages already with only two highlighted texts for further study. Hermione finished fourteen, but Susan had troubles with the seventh page that handled long division. Apparently she had never seen that types of formula's before. She cheered up a bit when Harry told her that meant she actually had less homework for this class than Harry and Hermione.

-Three days later-

Harry followed Hermione into their ancient runes classroom for their first lesson in that subject. He could only hope that they would not get the same amount of homework as they had received for arithmancy. He had spent a large part of the weekend to work through the exercise book, and only had about seven red pages to go when he failed one. Neville had just grinned at him and told him he should have taken muggle studies or care of magical creatures as well.

Still, both ancient runes and arithmancy would be more useful to him, but he hoped the insane amount of homework was a once-in-a-year experience… And he had to admit to himself that he liked the idea that he was still sharing all his classes with Hermione. He could barely remember the time before he joined her at junior school.

This class was about twice as big as their arithmancy class. Typically enough most of their arithmancy classmates showed up again though. The five Ravenclaws were now accompanied by the other four third-year claws though. And Tracey and Daphne were joined by Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini. Harry frowned when he realised how little he knew of those other Slytherins. Ernie Macmillan and Wayne Hopkins had attended their arithmancy class but were not in this class, instead Hufflepuff was represented by Hannah Abbot, Megan Jones and Justin Finch-Fletchly, who had managed to get up to date with the other students during the summer. And for Gryffindor Susan was replaced by Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas.

Their professor entered the room through a side door and was carrying some rolled up posters. She dropped them on her desk and addressed the class: 'Good morning class, and welcome to ancient runes. I am professor Babbling.' She looked very different from professor Vector. Professor Babbling was a roundfaced and rather plump woman, but her face beamed with energy. Of course, there was no real reason why the professors would look alike, but for some reason Harry had expected it. Maybe because both subjects were described as very theoretical courses.

The professor continued: 'Ancient runes is not the easiest subject that you will encounter at Hogwarts, but it offers great rewards for people who want to expend their knowledge about magic and improve their magical abilities. Our course will be focused on the Futhark, or the ancient runic alphabet of the Scandinavian countries. As you might know, wands only made their entrance in the Nordic countries after the infamous Viking raids began at the end of the eight century. Before that time, the wizards and witches of those countries used runes to channel their magic. And although this meant that their spells were different from our own latin based wand casted spells there are some runes that can help us. Let me give you a small example.' She whipped her wand around and one of the posters flew from her desk, unrolled itself and hovered in the air. On it was a runic symbol which resembled an X flanked by two vertical lines. This is the rune dagaz, which means day. If you combine it with lumos the spell actually works better. Give it a try, you should move your wand like this.' She moved her own wand from the bottom left of the poster to top left, then to bottom right, top right and back to bottom left. 'Then cast the spell.'

Everybody tried, and Harry had the feeling that his wand's light was a bit brighter, but it was hard to say while casting it in a brightly lit classroom. He was definitely going to try this tonight though.

The professor nodded to Justin who had his hand raised and asked: 'Yes, mr.?'

'Justin Finch-Fletchley professor, I was wondering… when I told my parents I would take ancient runes this year they mentioned Futhark as well.' The professor looked confused and he clarified: 'I am muggleborn.'

'Ah yes.' Professor Babbling smiled, 'The Futhark was actually used by Scandinavian muggles as well. Although the magical runes are a bit more complicated. Learning the runic alphabet is only part of our challenge. Eventually you will start to combine runes, not only in words or sentences, but also by actually mashing them together. As an example I have two advanced warding runes here.' Again she whipped her wand around and the poster with dagaz returned to the desk while the remaining two unrolled and hovered in front of the class. Both showed very complicated symbols with all kind of lines crisscrossing through each other. Harry saw only one small difference in the middle.

'Those symbols are combinations of twelve runes. If those symbols are charged with magic they can be linked to a single person and will repel everybody else, and they are often used as locks. Out of interest, can anyone see the difference between them?' The professor asked. Hesitantly, Harry raised his hand and when she nodded to him and asked for his name he said: 'Harry Potter, professor. And I see a difference right in the middle, the left one has a small line going up and the right one has a small line going down.'

'Impressive.' Professor Babbling smiled, 'You are the Gryffindor seeker, right?' Harry wondered what that had to do with it, but he nodded anyway. 'Yes, the attention for detail you use while looking for the snitch will help you during this class as well. Still, it will only be in fifth year that we start to create or own wards. For now, we will focus on the runic alphabet, did you all bring your runic dictionary?'

There was a murmur of agreement and the professor continued: 'Great, there is an introduction of some fifteen pages, I will give you some twenty minutes to read it and then we will use the rest of the lesson to debate it.'

After the class Harry and Hermione made their way to the library where they would join Susan, Neville, Daphne and Tracey for charms homework. As soon as they left the classroom Harry noticed that Hermione wanted to say something, but they were halfway to the library when she finally asked: 'How did you manage to spot the difference between those runes so fast?'

Harry shrugged: 'I don't know. Maybe it was pure luck that I started looking in the middle? Or maybe my seeker instincts, like the professor suggested?'

With a frown Hermione shook her head: 'Even after you pointed it out I had trouble seeing it…'

Again Harry shrugged: 'I'm sure you'll get better at it. Beside that, you will probably get all those runic symbols and strange grammar rules way faster than me. It looks like I forgot almost everything that mum and Remus taught us about runes a few years ago.'

'Maybe.' Hermione agreed, 'But I think you have a talent for this subject. And I am sure that Lily's and Remus' teaching will soon come back to you.'

For a third time Harry could only shrug. He thought it was way too soon to say anything about his talent for runes. Later that day he was pleasantly surprised when he tried the lumos spell in combination with the dagaz rune. It was almost twice as bright as his normal lumos, and he could barely look at his wand tip now.

_A/N: So, Harry and his friends started their third year. I figured a bit of background in how I will use arithmancy and ancient runes would be nice. I don't think there will be much more classroom scenes from those two classes though. They are a bit too theoretical to make for fun reading. Especially arithmancy. And too be honest I am not sure if I'd be able to help Susan with long division myself;) In Holland we use another method, and while I guess the idea is the same it looks confusing to me. So instead I will sometimes use knowledge from those subjects in DA sessions or other events._

_Also, I have no idea if there is some kind of official history book about the Potter world. But I thought my explanation about the origin of runes was nice, and I guess it is not that much of a shift from canon._

_Again, an insane amount of reviews with a large part of them from one person. So, one happy author again ;)_

_Naruhinafan86: I'm not saying that Lily would be blocked from the wizengamot or something, but I think her 'blood status' would make a large part of the conservative wizengamot members simply ignore her arguments. She would of course be able to handle the Potter vote. Right now those it is delegated to Augusta Longbottom though, and so far the Potters had no reason to complain about her decisions. Amelia handles the Black wizengamot seat for Sirius._

_Blue Luver5000: Yeah, especially Remus will focus on patronus training at first._

_Happylady, TwilightEclps: Thanks!_

_Alix34: Combining my reply to a few reviews here… Ch 34 & 37 Yeah, Neville's and Harry's parents have a good influence on them I think._

_And again, thanks for all the corrections. I will try to edit everything eventually:)_

_Throckmorton: Hope you enjoyed the start of the next school year:D_

_MAFITA: The good thing of those loose ends in canon is that it gives fanfiction authors a lot of room to play though… I don't think that was intentional, but I am happy to use it;)_

_Tricorvus: Thanks for all the reviews, I'm going to reply in a PM to prevent a way too long A/N ;)_

_LadySonics: I am not sure if there will be a literal 'mark' this time. I think the prophecy in itself is reason enough for Voldemort to keep hunting Harry. And the war has not really started yet, Voldemort is keeping a low profile as long as the ministry does not acknowledge his return. Kidnapping a few people would ruin that._

_Amata0221: I'm going to reread the entire story myself and see who made the best impression so far… I think Daphne stands a good chance though;)_


	44. The patronus charm

**The patronus charm**

It was the day of their first DADA class with Remus, and Harry and his friends made sure to be there in time so they could claim a few seats near the front. Beside that, they were looking forward to this lesson after a disastrous double potions class with the Slytherins. Snape had been in a very foul mood and seemed to find a lot of pleasure in criticizing the Gryffindor's shrinking solutions, while complimenting the efforts of his own Slytherins. Not that their potions were any better of course.

However, Remus only entered the classroom when all the students had already found a seat and unpacked their bags. He smiled vaguely at them and said: 'Apologies for my tardiness. There was a boggart in the teacher's room, and I decided to stash it away for use during a later lesson instead of destroying it.' Some students shifted uncomfortable at the idea of facing a boggart, but Harry remembered how the marauders had once destroyed one of those shapeshifters at Lionfire Hall. They had made it look easy. Remus continued: 'I was tempted to use it for this class, but I received clear instructions that we should focus on the patronus charm for the first few weeks.' Harry grinned, he had a very good idea about who had given those instructions to Remus. 'Does anyone -beside you four-' he pointed to the four desks in front of them 'know anything about this charm?'

Surprisingly enough Ron's hand was the only one to go up and when Remus nodded to him the redhead said: 'Well, I do not really know much about it. But I remember that my brother Charlie once complained that it was a very difficult charm to master while he was in seventh year. And last week you said my other brother Percy and some other seventh year students used it to stop the dementors?'

'Glad to see that you paid attention.' Remus smiled, 'And yes, the patronus charm _is _very hard to master. However, it is the only known way to stop dementors, and even an incomplete control of the charm will help to keep them away from you. Hopefully long enough for help to show up. Yes, Dean?'

Apparently Dean had raised his hand in question. For a few seconds Harry wondered how Remus had already learned the name of his students until he realised that Dean had visited Lionfire Hall for both summer camps. The black boy asked: 'I thought the dementors were a sort of prison guards. Do we really need to learn how to fight them? I mean, why would they bother us?'

Remus hesitated for a few seconds: 'What you have to realize is that the dementors are no humans, and so their actions are impossible to predict. The ministry claims they control them, and so far we have no real reason to disagree with them. Although it is still a bit vague if that action with the train was ministry approved. But we know that those creatures lust for human emotions and souls, and it is possible that a few of them escape from the ministry's control sometime. Of course, I hope they don't, but better safe than sorry, right?'

Dean frowned: 'They are dangerous then?'

'Quite so.' Remus agreed, 'Given the chance they will suck out your soul and while your body would survive that your live would be over.'

There were some shocked gasps and quickly he continued: 'As I said, it is very unlikely to happen. But I want to make sure you all know what to do in case of an emergency. Of course, if you have a chance running to a professor is still your best option.'

Nobody commented them and Remus started to explain about the patronus charm. Harry had of course heard this before, but he was polite enough to make some notes. It would look a bit odd if half the class barely paid attention during Remus' first lesson after all. Eventually Remus concluded: 'Since you all were at summer camp I am sure none of you will be surprised when I say that Harry, Neville, Hermione and Susan already got some exercises with the patronus charm during the end of the summer. While I can hardly expect them to share their most private happy memories with you I do wonder if any of you used a less personal memory that you want to share as an example?'

There was a short silence until Harry said: 'Well, I have used my memory of enjoying an Italian beach… It seemed to work better than some others.'

Remus nodded: 'In a way, that doesn't surprise me. Dementors are creatures that prefer cold and dreary weather.' He chuckled, 'Maybe that's why there are so many in Britain. Anyway, it seems to make sense that memories of sunny beaches would work against them. Beside that, I think Harry's example shows that your memory does not need to focus on some very happy event, instead you could also aim for a peaceful or content feeling. As long as the emotion is positive it could work. Just start practicing and make sure to use different memories if it does not work at first.'

The rest of the class was spent by the students casting white mists. Harry had the feeling that his own mist seemed to grow bigger and almost spotted the vague outline of a creature. But most likely he had imagined it. Beside that, he was expecting an eagle patronus, just like his animagus form, and the outline looked nothing like an eagle.

— Three weeks later —

It was the third DA session of the year, and this time Harry and Susan were focusing on working with the higher years on the patronus charm. Although to tell the truth that meant they mainly focused on practising for themselves. After all, the theory and wand movements behind the charm were rather easy. The problem was finding the right memory and the right emotion, and they could hardly help people with that. Still, it was good to see that by now everybody managed at least a dense fog, and for many people the fog actually started to take shape. Harry's own patronus seemed to be some kind of big animal, like a horse or a deer. He was quite sure it was not going to be an eagle by now.

Every now and then he looked to the other side of the great hall where Hermione and Neville and a few second years were working with the first years. This year every first year student had joined the DA, even all the Slytherins. He had asked Daphne about it and she explained that last year Draco had bullied several the first year Slytherin students until they did not dare to join, now that he was gone there was nothing to stop them. In fact, a few second year snakes had also joined with the DA this year, and they were practising with the firsties.

He had wondered if the DA was not growing too big by now. The new members would need half a year to catch up with the others by now, and it would grow increasingly difficult to work on new spells with the 'old' group. But when he had told Hermione about his worries she had waved them away. According to her the most important things of the DA would be practising duels, especially about how and when to dodge and work on the whispered spellcasting, and creating friendships between the houses. Now that they were reasonably sure that there would be competent DADA teachers for the next few years they would not have to focus that much on learning new spells. Although of course it would not hurt. Beside that, she argued that the real work would begin as soon as the selection for the new group was made. And once again she argued that Tracey should be one of them.

Harry had reluctantly agreed, he had no idea what he could do to improve the DA anyway. And beside that, it looked like everybody still had fun. Which was the most important to him anyway. He had been tempted to try for two sessions a week, but he was rather sure that Wood would kill him if the DA would interfere with quidditch practise. And beside that, the fifth year members of the DA had their OWLs this year, and they needed their study time. Even Fred and George were sometimes spotted while doing their homework. Harry was quite sure that they still remembered their deal with his father.

— Five weeks later —

Harry fled into the changing rooms. The weather was horrible, a cold rain storm was terrorizing both the quidditch field and the stands. Although amazingly enough all the school had still showed up for Gryffindor's match against Slytherin. He guessed it was one of the main events of the quidditch season, but at the same time he wondered how much the spectators would be able to see of the match through the downpour. It was a good thing that his glasses were water-repellent at least, but it would still be difficult to even spot the snitch. Let alone catch it.

Funnily enough it was the first time that the twins and the chasers had been more fervent in urging Harry to capture the snitch fast than Wood. Apparently none of them was interested in a long game in soaked robes. And to be honest, Harry would not terribly mind if he could capture the snitch within five minutes either, although it was very unrealistic.

Even madam Hooch seemed to be in a hurry, she skipped her usual warning about how she wanted a fair game and just made the captains shake hands before whistling for the start of the game. Harry immediately started to circle the field. At first he tried to stay in sight of Terence Higgs, the Slytherin seeker who had returned to the team after Malfoy was banned last year, but it was useless. Due to the weather it was barely possible to see the difference between the Slytherin players and he was not sure if he was following Higgs or one of the beaters. So instead he slowly circled around and tried to spot the snitch.

The wind kept blowing him of course and he had to compensate every time, which made it even more difficult to gaze through the rain. It was a good thing that his parents had bought him some very good quidditch robes and gloves a while ago, but he still felt miserable and cold. For a moment he wondered if the much taller seventh year Slytherin seeker would have less trouble with the wind, but he quickly shook that thought away. It was not going to help him anyway.

He kept flying between red and green blurs, and every now and then he heard a few words of Lee Jordan's commentary. But he had no idea how the game was developing. Every few minutes he barely avoided a bludger or another player and he started to hope that the snitch would randomly show up in front of him. Merlin! Right now he would not even care too much if it showed up in the Slyherin seeker's glove!

At the first flash of lightning he heard madam Hooch's whistle and saw Wood beckoning from the side of the field. Quickly he and the other team members splashed down in the mud beside him and they gathered under a large umbrella. Not that it was any use since the rain was almost flying horizontally by now. Wood said: 'I called for a timeout, we need to think of a way to find the snitch soon. Otherwise we are going to play into the night.'

Harry shook his head: 'I can barely see fifty feet in front of me, so unless the snitch shows up in front of me…'

Wood grimly nodded and Fred asked: 'What's the score anyway? I need all my attention to find the bludgers and I can't hear Lee.'

'We're forty points ahead.' Wood replied.

'And I did not throw a single pass yet.' Angelina grumbled. 'Only thing you can do when you have the quaffle is fly to the other side and get as close to the hoops as possible. Stupid rain!'

Wood frowned: 'Yes, I know… Harry, try zooming around as fast as you can. If any of us sees the snitch we will call for you.'

'Alright I guess.' Harry nodded, 'But maybe you should not call my name, it will only alert the Slytherins.'

'Good point.' Wood agreed.

George grinnned: 'Let's shout "Snape" instead, that should confuse them.'

Before Wood could even reply madam Hooch showed up and asked: 'Are you ready to go again?'

Wood nodded and said: 'Snape it is.' Which earned him a confused glance from madam Hooch. Seconds later Harry was flying through the rain again. He almost lost control when a thunderclap was immediately followed by a lightning bolt. He really needed to find the snitch soon, this was getting dangerous. Another flash of lightning illuminated the field and he heard Wood bellowing: 'HARRY! BEHIND YOU!'

Wildly he looked around and saw Terence Higgs speeding towards him. Another look made him notice the snitch right between them. Panicked he flung himself flat on his broom and raced forward. It was a good thing that the wind pushed him even faster, Higgs was much closer but was struggling against the same wind.

Oddly enough the sound of the wind suddenly felt away although it was still as strong as ever. It was almost as if somebody had turned of the sound. Then amazingly he felt even colder than he did until now, and this cold seemed to run straight through him. Somewhat distracted he looked down and saw about a hundred dementors looking up at him. He tried to shake of their effects and just managed to stretch his left hand towards the snitch, he only just grabbed it away from Higgs' clawing hand and immediately used his right hand to whip his wand towards the dementors. He shouted: 'EXPECTO PATRONUM!' and only then realized that both his hands were now away from the broom. A gust of wind toppled him and suddenly he was falling towards the ground and the dementors while still clutching the snitch and his wand. Frantically he tried to remember the spell they had used to soften the ground during a DA session long ago. Just in time he moved his wand and said: 'Spongify!'

Several dementors clawed towards him but he simply bounced back into the air and none of them could touch him, although from this close Harry had trouble keeping his wits together against their influence. He spotted several patronuses scattering the dementors already before he dropped down again. He had to use the spongify spell twice more before he finally stayed down in the mud. Two dementors immediately advanced on him and he crawled backwards, all thoughts of trying to summon a patronus or at least some white fog gone. The dementors were only three feet away from him when a huge silver form flew over Harry and charged them.

Surprised but relieved he stared at the stag and how it scared the dementors away. A second later his father slipped to a halt beside him and asked: 'Are you alright Harry?'

'I think so.' Harry replied, somewhat confused.

'Good.' James nodded before he pointed his wand at another dementor and silently summoned another large stag. 'Stay with me, and try to call another patronus if you can. I could not really see the shape of the one you sent from your broom, but it really scared them.'

'I summoned a real patronus?' Harry asked, bewildered by the very idea. When his father only nodded he tried to recall the euphoric feeling that he had felt for only a few seconds when he realised that he had actually won and more importantly finished this hellish match. Eventually he gave it a try: 'Expecto patronum!'

A huge stag leapt from his wand, it was easily a foot taller than his fathers stag. James watched it go and muttered: 'I am not sure if I should be excited that your patronus is the same as mine or upset that it is already bigger… But great job anyway Harry!'

'Thanks.' Harry grinned, excited by his own spell. Then he finally took some time to look around. He saw his mother working together with professors Flitwick and Snape. Further along Remus and Sirius were also combining their efforts. Their patronuses actually looked alike. But the most impressive sight was on the far side of the field, where Albus Dumbledore was marching through the rain like some angry ancient god of war. Over ten huge birdlike patronuses were charging the vast mass of dementors in front of him which quickly dispersed under the onslaught. Professor McGonagall was following behind him and had three much smaller cat patronuses circling around the headmaster.

As soon as the dementors started to leave the field others showed up on their sides. Fred and George were the first to join them and simultaneously asked: 'Are you alright Harry? That looked scary.'

Harry shrugged: 'The bouncing was actually rather funny. But those dementors scared me witless.'

'Yeah, we know.' Fred agreed, 'I tried to summon a patronus, but only got fog… at least it made me somewhat more comfortable.'

'Even that is impressive when encountering such a mass of dementors at your age.' James commented, 'But did you see Harry's patronus?'

'Yeah, it was wicked.' George grinned.

Harry grinned back at him and raised his left hand: 'And I got the snitch as well!'

'Oh wow, didn't even notice that.' Fred replied, clearly surprised.

'Do you have any idea what happened to my broom though?' Harry asked.

'No clue.' Fred answered and George pointed to his right: 'I saw it heading in that direction.'

Harry almost wanted to go look for it, but his father said: 'We'll find it after the storm is over. Right now we are going to get you to the hospital wing Harry. I was really impressed with your use of spongify, but I want madam Pomfrey to look at you none-the-less.'

'As do I.' Lily joined them and quickly engulfed Harry in a hug while whispering: 'Are you okay?'

'Yeah, I am fine mum.' Harry replied. And although he wanted to stay at the field a bit longer to find out if everybody else was alright his parents started to push him towards the castle. There was no real way to stop them.

It was several hours later when he found out that his broom had flew into the whomping willow and was now reduced to very small fragments. It almost felt like he had lost a friend, but he cheered up a bit when his father told him that they would buy him a new broom before his next match.

_A/N: Hope you liked my alternative dementor quidditch game. It seemed to make sense that Harry would manage to stay on his broom a little bit longer this time without his worst canon memories. And he is starting to show some more signs of becoming a very strong wizard._

_On a sidenote, I have been using Alix33's reviews to erase some spelling mistakes from the earlier chapters. Managed to reach chapter 20 so far, which means that for the next three months or so I have all those chapters ready to edit. So if there is anything that has been bothering you for a while, give me a shout ;)_

_As usual, time for reviews:_

_Teufel1987: I use the HP lexicon a lot, really like that site. But to be honest I did not bother to look up if there was any history involving runes or Scandinavians;) _

_As to long division, this is how we do it in Holland (or used to it, almost twenty years ago since I worked with them:P) wiki/Staartdeling_

_I guess you can't read the descriptions, but at least you can see the picture of a 'staartdeling'. I am sure you would reach the same results with long division, but because it is written down in a different way it looks confusing to me. _

_Happylady: Still not commenting on possible pairings :D You'll just have to wait and see._

_MaeSilverpaws1: Hopefully it just drives her to do better instead of causing a jealousy fit…_

_Blue Luver5000: Well, he used some DADA classes for it. Guess that helped ;)  
_

_Sanbeegoldiewhitey: Thanks, I hope I will be able to use runes a few more times in the story._

_ArmyWife22079: I googled for Celtic runes first, because that made sense to me with Hogwarts being in Scotland and all that. But the first site I found told me that Celtic runes did not exist, so that was confusing;) Beside that, the few times that Hermione mentions the name of a rune in canon they sound like the Scandinavian ones._

_Frau: Yeah, I heard that before. And while I agree that this is not a perfect system it is still the best I can come up with;)_

_MAFITA: Not confusing at all since I had the same vague ideas. I don't think there is an official explanation of those subjects, but this is what I made up. Glad to hear that you liked it._

_Lookie Loo: You caught me while I was editing;) It should be alright by now, thanks for the warning though. And to be honest I did not know there was a difference between child and kid. I'll try and look into it sometime._


	45. Black tidings

**Black tidings**

James lazily browsed through the Daily Prophet. It was only eight in the morning and he had just joined Lily at the breakfast table. She was already struggling through a pile of notes about her potion research, but James preferred to take his time to wake up. And so he was wasting his time on an article about Celestina Warbeck's love life while waiting for his coffee to cool down a bit. As soon as his still half sleeping brain finally registered what he was reading he quickly moved on to the sports section. Maybe there was new information about the new Puddlemere United chaser.

He was interrupted when Sirius stormed into the dining room. And even Lily looked up from her notes when she noticed Sirius' uncommonly grave expression and the fact that he was still dressed in a bathrobe. Their friend simply dropped into a chair and looked at each of them in turn: 'I guess you didn't hear it yet, but a muggle town was attacked last night.'

'What?' James half shouted, while Lily asked: 'What town?'

Sirius shook his head: 'I don't know if it even has a name. Town was a bit too big a word; the way Amelia told it there were only six houses all together.'

'What happened?' James asked, and then he frowned at the paper: 'And why isn't it in the paper?'

'Amelia only just told me over the floo, so I do not know all the specifics. She got called away just before six… Apparently the muggle policemen had contacted the ministry of magic… This means that some big shots got involved.' Sirius paused, 'I am telling this all wrong I guess… Let's start with what happened, last night six muggle families were slaughtered some thirty miles north of London.'

'By death eaters of course.' Lily grimly added, but to everybody's surprise Sirius shook his head again: 'That's the point, we do not know for sure. Or at least, we do _know_ for sure, but there is no proof. You remember the dark mark of course?' They both grimly nodded and Sirius added: 'There was no dark mark above those houses.'

James hesitated: 'Maybe it had already faded away? Although usually it only faded after twenty hours or so.'

Sirius nodded: 'I asked the same thing, and Amelia told me that the muggles had only died this night. Her people did a standard check and encountered enough magical residues, so she is quite sure that the muggles were killed by wizards. Beside that there were the usual signs. And while she obviously suspects, even knows, that Voldemort and his gang were behind it she is afraid that the minister will abuse the fact that there was no dark mark to ignore her warnings.'

There was a long silence until Lily whispered: 'As if six slaughtered families would not be enough reason for alarm.'

'I know.' James agreed, he had been thinking of the time that he and some order members had been the first to arrive in a tiny muggle village after a death eater attack now almost fifteen years ago. The things he had seen there had plagued his nightmares for years. He could only hope that the victims of this night had not suffered too long.

It was Lily who added: 'I wonder if it will be in tomorrow's Daily Prophet. Somehow, I have the feeling that the ministry won't allow it, they want to keep the masses silent.'

Irritated, James replied: 'This is getting ridiculous. Fudge is too afraid to admit the truth, and by doing that he is endangering both our world and the muggle world. We should be expanding the auror division and work out protective measures for wizards and muggles alike. But he just pretends that everything is fine. Are we sure he isn't a death eater?'

'As sure as we can be without lifting his sleeve.' Sirius shrugged, 'Not that it really makes a difference as long as he keeps listening to Malfoy… But Amelia is sure that it is just Fudge's stupidity that is bothering us and that he is not really evil.'

'That's reassuring.' Lily dryly commented.

'Very.' Sirius agreed, in the same tone. 'It is a shame that we can't do anything about Malfoy. Well, not legally at least. And I think Amelia would not like it if we assassinate him.'

'Too bad.' James chuckled, he had to admit that it was a tempting idea. 'Can't we just bribe Fudge away from Malfoy?'

Sirius shook his head: 'Unlikely, the Malfoy's are filthy rich and if necessary they will probably get support from the other rich death eaters. And by now Fudge is used to him. I don't see him turning away from the hand that fed him for all those years.'

'Beside that, he will probably suspect us if we tried.' Lily added, 'Our reputation is a bit too good for our own good sometimes.' She looked a bit confused by her own remark but continued: 'Can't we get Fudge replaced? Combined with the Longbottom, Bones and Dumbledore votes and maybe some other votes from the Order we should have enough to force an election.'

Sirius looked interested but this time James shook his head: 'Dumbledore is the chief warlock and can't support a motion like that. I think we could still easily get the requested fifteen percent to get an election on the agenda, but at the moment we will never get a majority in the wizengamot to remove Fudge.'

'Why not?' Lily wanted to know, 'We can't be the only ones that realise that Fudge is an idiot.'

James snorted: 'I would be surprised if you can find anyone inside the wizengamot that does not think Fudge is an idiot, not counting Umbridge. The problem is that most of them do not realise that Voldemort is on his way back. And thus they are quite happy about having an idiot for a minister, it gives them a lot more options to improve their own situations.'

Sirius nodded: 'Yeah, we are a bunch of idiots.'

Now Lily snorted: 'Well, it's true that purebloods should learn to look a bit further than their own mansions while they try and run a country. So I guess this means that we can't do anything about the ministry until Voldemort shows himself?'

'Or something else happens that makes it impossible for Fudge to survive an election.' James agreed, then he turned to Sirius and asked: 'Did Amelia already accept that we are going to nominate her for minister when we get the opportunity?'

Sirius grinned: 'Somewhat, she is a bit upset by the idea that she would be nominated by people that know her outside the ministry. You know how she is right? Always determined to earn whatever she gets, I think she would be much more comfortable with it if someone else nominates her and we only support that nomination. But if no one is smart enough to name her we will have to do it.'

James shrugged, he could somewhat accept and even admire Amelia's strong principles, but if he knew a way to appoint her to the minister seat right now he would do it. Eventually he just said: 'Is their any way that we can help her? Or make the wizarding world realise what is going on?'

Sirius just shrugged in reply but Lily said: 'Can't we just buy the Daily Prophet and tell them to report the truth? Or start another, more neutral, newspaper?'

The two men looked at each other in wonder. Eventually Sirius said: 'That could work, I guess that if we could force the truth to the other wizengamot families they might work with us and against Fudge. Although I am not sure who owns the Prophet right now. And I have no idea how to start a newspaper…'

'Buying the Prophet would be easiest.' James thought aloud, 'It is pretty much the only paper that is read by a lot of wizards.'

'I'll look into it.' Sirius grinned, 'This is going to be fun!' And he quickly leapt up from his chair and moved back to the fireplace. Lily called to him that he should change clothes first, but he only waved in reply before he disappeared. James grinned at his wife, the very idea that they could do something to influence the war was exciting to him. Of course, he knew that their training and research would pay out when they eventually had to fight the death eaters. But it was unlikely that the six of them would decide the war on the battlefield. The wizarding society had to stand up against the threat somehow.

- Three days later -

It had quickly turned out that it would be impossible to actually buy the Prophet. Apparently 51% of its shares were owned by the ministry, which led Lily into a rant about how corrupt the wizarding society really was. Neither James nor Sirius really disagreed with her, but it presented them with a problem. They had no time or intent to run their own newspaper, and more likely than not they lacked the journalistic talents as well. Yet, with the Daily Prophet being the only regular newspaper in Britain it was not that easy to find some competition. Sirius had suggested the Quibbler, but that idea was hastily shot down.

Eventually they had decided to approach some journalists that worked for foreign newspapers and try to form a team that could start up a competitive British newspaper. Their family vaults would sponsor it, and they were going to cheat a bit by providing some of the news. For example, a huge interview with James and Lily about what really happened on that Halloween night in their first paper should draw some attention. Of course, a large part of it would consist out of pure lies, but Voldemort was the only one outside their circle who really knew what happened. And he was unlikely to send in a complaint. Beside that, they planned to offer a free month of subscription to anyone who was interested, in fact Sirius had suggested to simply send the newspapers to everybody they could think of for the first month. But none of them really had an idea about the costs involved.

Still, right now the three of them were browsing through stacks of American, Canadian, Australian and other English foreign newspapers and made lists of journalists that they wanted to invite. Of course, there was a lot of arguing about what subjects should be covered in the new newspaper.

It was quite refreshing to read some different newspapers for a change. James especially liked the sports sections. They did not mention that much about the British quidditch leagues, but when they did they were perfectly neutral. In the Daily Prophet the sport journalists were clearly prejudiced about some teams.

Of course, eventually they would have to start thinking about more practical and boring things. Like offices, printing presses and advertising. But right now James admitted that it was rather exciting to think about it all. For a short while, all his worries about the real world disappeared to the background. Of course, this was disrupted when Hedwig, Harry's snowy owl, slowly winged its way into their living room. Lily had noticed him first and while she removed the parchment from its leg she wondered aloud: 'Why would Harry send his owl? The mirrors still work don't they?'

'Two days ago they did.' Sirius confirmed while pulling some owl treats out of his pocket, Hedwig accepted them in a dignified way.

'I guess you'll just have to read it Lily.' James smiled, somehow he was not really worried. It was impossible that Harry or his friends would not have asked for help via the mirrors if something was wrong. So the message could not be that urgent.

'No, really?' Lily asked with an exaggerated frown.

'Yup!' James and Sirius happily nodded and she just chuckled before she looked at the parchment: 'It's blank.' Before James or Sirius could say anything she pointed her wand at it and said: 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.' Immediately letters appeared and they all chuckled. Then James wondered how on earth Harry had managed this, they had only developed the marauders map in their fifth year. However, Lily started to read:

'Dear everyone. I bet you were surprised by our protection. To be honest the twins worked it out for us, although they have no idea bout the contents of this letter. The four of us have been thinking about who to invite for the new and improved DA. Or the 'green guard' as Susan likes to call it. We know that we still have about half a year to make our final decisions, but we would like to start some occlumency training with our possible candidates after the Christmas vacation. Of course, we are not going to tell them everything about the prophecy, but they will probably have to keep some secrets.'

'That makes sense.' James agreed, even the fact that the 'green guard' existed should be a secret at first after all.

'And it does not really harm us if we train a few extra people in occlumency, right?' Here Lily interrupted her own reading: 'Well, unless they use it against you somehow. But I guess they can always learn it from somebody else.' Sirius and James nodded in agreement and she continued reading: 'I bet that you are wondering why we send our list by Hedwig instead of discussing it through the mirrors. But Hermione is convinced that it would be a good idea for you guys to form your own opinion about our list. That way, we can discuss the names during the Christmas break. She was afraid that our own preferences would influence you if we discussed this by mirror.'

Again Lily interrupted herself: 'I guess that makes sense.'

'Yeah, whatever.' Was Sirius' impatient reply, 'Tell us the names already.'

Lily smiled and looked at the letter again. Then she said: 'It's pretty much done by now.' She pointed her wand at the parchment again and silently made two copies which she handed to the marauders. They both started to study the names, and James was quite surprised at a few of them.

_A/N: Nice authors would share the list with you right now. Sadly, I'm not one of those;)_

_On a side note, was it worldwide fanfiction weekend for the last few days or so? Normally the number of my views/ visitors/ reviews and other alerts would drop down sharply on days without an update, but for the last few days it actually climbed. Not that I am complaining, just wondering how on earth that happened;)_

_It made me realise that the way I'm replying to reviews is more and more straining the system though, especially with a short chapter like this. And so I decided to finally change to another way. Which is part of the reason why this chapter was a bit on the short side I guess, I had other things to do… Anyway, if you go to my profile you will find a link. Apparently I can not use hyperlinks in the story itself, and even on the profile it does not really work… However, if you follow that link you will arrive at a forum that I created yesterday and which will be the new home for all my replies to your reviews. I do hope this new system will not reduce the amount of reviews I get here on fanfiction, because to be honest I am rather addicted to them._

_I will eventually edit all the earlier replies away from this website, but it might take a while. Still, A/Ns will be much shorter from now on ;)_

_Edit: funnily enough the forum gives me a lot of 'server errors' today. Worked fine yesterday. I hope it's a temporary thing and that I did not just waste a lot of time to create an unstable forum… Ah well, I just hope it works for you guys. And if not, just keep trying :P _


	46. Hogsmeade

**Hogsmeade**

Harry sighed. He knew it had been a mistake to go to Tomes & Scrolls with his friends during their first Hogsmeade visit. They had been at the bookstore for over an hour now. Susan was happily browsing through some autobiographies about famous witches, Neville was getting lost in the Herbology section and he had not seen Hermione for over half an hour now. He guessed she was methodically struggling through the entire store. Ah well, at least it was warm here. It was almost freezing outside, or it felt like that at least.

He looked at the two books that he had bought for himself during the first five minutes of their visit. He did not really expect anything from the thin duelling guide, feeling that it was more a skill you learned by doing, but it could not hurt to read a bit more theory about it. The other book had the title _Basics of occlumency._ He had quickly browsed through it and although there was nothing new inside it he figured it could be useful when they would start to train the potential green guards.

'Are you going to work on your occlumency Harry? I can help you with that if you want.' A girl's voice sounded from his left. He turned and looked into the smiling face of Daphne Greengrass and replied: 'Eh, no. I already know how to do it, we were planning to teach it to a few of the DA members after Christmas. It would be great if you could help us though.'

Daphne shrugged: 'My parents taught it to me before I came to Hogwarts. And I have been showing it to Tracey during first year. But I like to help, and I think Tracey would as well.'

'Cool.' Harry smiled, 'Where's Tracey anyway.'

Daphne vaguely gestured towards the bookshelves that surrounded them. 'I was walking around with her until we ran into Hermione. Then the two of them started talking about the books they found and I figured I should try to find you instead of getting bored by them… Well, or Neville or Susan I guess. Anyway, I don't get why they are so excited about books, it is much more fun to simply do magic instead of reading about it.'

Harry chuckled: 'Susan and Neville are also browsing for books, so thanks for keeping me company. And I fully agree with you. Hermione tried to get me interested in this store by telling me that there is a big quidditch section… Like I want to read about quidditch, I want to play!'

'Well, the way you fly I would prefer to read.' Daphne grimaced, 'What happened to your broomstick after that last stunt of you by the way?'

'Crashed into the whomping willow and was destroyed.' Harry replied, rather shortly. He still was a bit upset about the loss of his broom. Then he shrugged: 'My father promised me a new broom for Christmas though, so I make do with the school brooms during practise for now.'

'I wonder if Slytherin would stand a chance if you were flying a school broom.' Daphne mused.

'I only just beat Higgs on my Nimbus!' Harry protested, but Daphne waved it away: 'Dumb luck on Higgs' part, and you know it. Beside that, you were distracted by those dementors.'

Harry shrugged, he had to admit that she had a point there. Dementors were hardly good for your game. He decided on one final remark before changing the subject: 'Luck can easily win or lose me a game though. Anyway, how long do you think it will take before the others are done here?'

Daphne took a few seconds to think before she said: 'Knowing Tracey like I do and adding that to what I know of Hermione the two of them might very well waste the rest of the day in here. I am not sure about Neville and Susan.'

Harry frowned: 'Last time I saw them they found some comfortable spots to read their own books. I think they were planning to wait for Hermione.'

Suddenly Daphne smiled: 'Maybe we should just ditch our bookish friends and get a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks? My treat?'

After a few seconds of surprise Harry chuckled: 'Isn't the boy supposed to pay for the drinks?'

'Only if we are on an actual date. Are we?' Daphne immediately replied, and Harry had the feeling that he had walked right into that one. He chuckled again and eventually decided not to answer while quickly stomping down any thoughts that wondered if he would like to go on a date with Daphne. Instead he said: 'Let's do it. But we should tell Neville and Susan first. They are over there.'

He walked to a secluded corner and found his two friends still engrossed in their books. They only looked up when he made their presence known with a cough. He didn't give them the time to start talking with Daphne but immediately said: 'Hey, Daphne and I were thinking of heading to the Three Broomsticks. If you two don't mind waiting for Tracey and Hermione before you join us?'

Susan smiled at him and said: 'Sure, you two go have fun.' But Neville looked worried: 'Are you sure you should go out on your own? I mean…' He hesitated while looking at Daphne, but Susan reached over to him and when he looked at her she shook her head and said: 'They will be fine, it's only some fifty yards to the Three Broomsticks.' Then she turned back to Harry and Daphne again and concluded: 'Go for it before Hermione or Tracey emerges out of the sea of books and pulls you under.'

They both chuckled and practically ran out of the book store. Outside they quickly wrapped their cloaks around themselves as protection against the biting cold. Halfway to the Three Broomsticks Daphne asked: 'Why was Neville so worried about you? Should I be worried as well?'

Harry shrugged and tried to think of a reply: 'It's just that my parents have been worried since those death eaters escaped. You know how my parents were the ones to destroy Voldemort's body?'

'Of course.' Daphne nodded, interestingly enough she barely reacted to the name. 'So your parents are afraid that the death eaters want to take revenge? That also explains all the extra training you and your friends had.'

'Something like that.' Harry vaguely replied, he was not going to tell his full life story to Daphne right now. And even if he did do that sometime it would not be in a the middle of a busy Hogsmeade street.

Soon enough they made their way into the Three Broomsticks, it seemed like the cold weather had driven the majority of the students into the inn. The place was extremely crowded, but at least it was warm and cosy. Harry and Daphne looked around for a free table until a voice called: 'Harry! Over here!'

Harry looked around and to his surprise he saw his father waving at him from a small but empty table. With a resigned sigh he pulled Daphne towards his table. He was not quite sure if he was ready to call this a date, but he had not really been planning to spend their time at the Three Broomsticks with his father.

'Hey Harry,' His father smiled, 'Sorry, didn't see you had a lady friend with you… Daphne Greengrass, right?'

'That's me indeed Mr. Potter.' Daphne politely replied.

James chuckled: 'Didn't we tell you guys often enough to call us by our first names at summer camp? Just call me James.' Daphne nodded and he continued: 'And don't worry about me. I will only be here for ten more minutes or so. I am waiting for someone, as soon as he arrives we will head to one of the more private rooms.'

While Daphne and Harry took a seat Harry asked: 'Ah, I was wondering what you were doing in Hogsmeade. For a moment I was worried you thought you needed to look after me.'

James grinned: 'Well, that's part of the reason… Nah, in fact we have been patrolling the Hogsmeade weekends ever since you started at Hogwarts. Dumbledore asked us and we all agreed that the students are actually rather vulnerable outside of the castle.'

'Oh, I didn't see you or any of the others.' Harry half asked, half stated.

'Well, you wouldn't. Sirius, Lily and I were on the roof of Honeydukes until I left them for my appointment. And even if you had looked there we were all disillusioned. Frank and Alice had a better spot, they are friends with one of the shopkeepers and are staying in the room above his shop. And Remus had to skip this one because he still had a lot of homework to correct. I honestly was not planning to disturb your Hogsmeade trip, but when I saw you looking for a table…' James explained.

'Oh, it's alright. Otherwise we would still be looking I think.' Harry nodded, and Daphne commented: 'Wasn't it freezing on the roof?'

James shrugged: 'We used a lot of warming charms yeah.' They were interrupted by a pretty woman who turned out to be the waitress. James quickly ordered three butterbeers and turned to Harry with an evil smile: 'Anyway, now that I am bothering you anyway… You know full well that your mother is going to grill me for answers when I tell her that I saw you with a girl. So, what's going on?'

Harry desperately searched for an answer that would not hurt Daphne but would also not give the impression that anything was going on. He was saved when Daphne spoke up: 'Not much James.' Her "James" sounded a bit uncomfortable still. 'We were at Tomes & Scrolls and the two of us decided to flee from our more bookish friends. But there is nothing going on between us.' Then she had to ruin it by softly adding: 'Yet.'

Harry felt a blush coming up, she had said that last word very softly and he was not sure if she wanted him to hear it. At least his father had not noticed it and he replied: 'Ah yes, I can see why you would do that. We usually had to bodily haul Remus out of that store back when we were at Hogwarts. Sirius and I much preferred Zonko's and Honeydukes.'

'I haven't been to Zonko's yet.' Harry admitted, happy to change the subject.

'Oh, you should. It is a nice enough store, although they still offer the same products they had in our day… I really think the twins will have a nice opportunity in a few years.' James replied, half distracted by something behind Harry. He turned around and saw professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Hagrid walking into the room. Hagrid was talking to a portly man in a lime-green bowler hat and a pin-striped cloak. He looked vaguely familiar, but Harry could not really place him so he was happy when Daphne asked: 'Isn't that minister Fudge.'

'Yes he is.' James softly replied, 'And it is about time that he visits Hogwarts after the dementor incident. But he could have picked a better day.'

'Why? What's the problem?' Harry wanted to know.

With a sigh James replied: 'I'm supposed to meet a Canadian journalist. I don't want Fudge to find out about that meeting. At least it looks like he is going to sit with his back turned to us, so that's something at least. And I hope he won't recognize the Canadian anyway.'

'A Canadian journalist?' Harry repeated in surprise.

James waved his question away after a not so subtle glance at Daphne: 'Long story. I'll tell you another time.'

'Oh, alright.' Harry shrugged, he was just going to ask again by mirror tonight after all, so it was not that important. For a few minutes they chatted about common things, mostly James asked questions about school while Harry asked questions about home. He quickly realised that Daphne could only join when they talked about Hogwarts, so Harry let his father do most of the talking so the two of them could reply every now and then. He actually learned a few things about Daphne, like that her favourite subjects were charms and ancient runes and that she was really interested in magical history but hated Binns' classes just as much as the rest of the student body.

Eventually they were interrupted by a soft but clear: 'Mr. Potter?'

They all looked up and saw a short blonde man looking at James. He was rather stocky and had an odd green beret on his head. As soon as they all looked at him he said: 'I am David Burke.'

'From the _Canadian Herald._' James nodded, 'Nice to meet you Mr. Burke. I got us a private room for our discussion. Just a moment.' He picked up his butterbeer and quickly emptied it before dropping a galleon on the table and saying: 'First round was on me. Have fun kids.' Then he quickly showed the Canadian man to one of the private rooms while shooting looks towards Fudge's back every few steps. The minister kept talking with the Hogwarts professors until James and his guest disappeared.

When they were gone Daphne softly said: 'A journalist huh? I wonder what that would be like?'

Harry shrugged: 'No idea. Could be fun I guess... Do you have any idea about what you want to do after Hogwarts'

Daphne hesitated: 'No, not really. What about you?'

Now it was Harry's turn to hesitate. He could hardly tell her about the prophecy and how that would influence his life, so he said: 'If I get the chance I might try for professional quidditch, I've loved it ever since I got my first broom.'

With an easy smile Daphne replied: 'You're good enough I think. I have to admit I am curious… between quidditch and apparently occlumency training and all the training that you shared in the DA, how was your childhood? Did you even have time for fun things?'

Harry slowly started to talk about his pre-Hogwarts years, carefully avoiding some subjects like the animagus training and other parts of their magical training sessions. Luckily Daphne was really interested in his time at the muggle ground school, which was a rather safe thing to talk about.

Only when the other four showed up did the two of them realise how time had flew by. They quickly shared another butterbeer with the others and listened to Hermione and Tracey describing their new books before they had to hurry back to Hogwarts.

_A/N: Changed plans about reviews again, I'll still use the forum but will combine it with private messages to the reviewers. Which means some people get two messages now… I already miss the interaction after one chapter;) _

_Anyway, I was planning to write about the Christmas break and the list that Harry sent to his parents, but then I realised I was forgetting about their first Hogsmeade visit. And I just had to dedicate a chapter to that._


	47. The list

**The list**

It was only the second day of the Christmas vacation when Hermione, Neville and Susan came to visit at Lionfire Hall. Neville was accompanied by his parents and Sirius accompanied Susan. As usual when the subject had anything to do with their fight against Voldemort Hermione's parents were not invited. It was a shame that muggles could not learn occlumency. Harry did not really know if Hermione's parents would have anything to add to the discussion, but it would be nice for Hermione if they could attend at least.

Still, there was nothing he could do about it. And so he just quickly browsed over the list of names that they had sent to his parents a few weeks ago. He had to suppress a chuckle when he remembered how pleased Hedwig had been when she returned from her delivery, he should probably let her do some more work every now and then.

They were all seated around a large circular table. The six adults were more or less on the opposite of the four teenagers. His parents were in the centre of the adults and it was Lily who started to talk: 'Well, we all read through the list and we do have a few questions. Maybe it's best if we work our way from the top… Which reminds me, are they in a particular order?'

Hermione, who had of course actually been writing down the list when they discussed it in the boys dormitory, replied: 'Not really, we figured we should save that discussion for when we found out how many suits are actually available for them.'

Lily nodded: 'That makes sense I guess. So, to get started we will only debate the names today and see if we should ban anyone from the list. We were rather surprised by the first name on the list. But when I started to think about it I realised that Luna Lovegood was actually one of my best first year defence students. She just never really drew attention to herself…' After half a second she corrected herself: 'Well, not in a way that made her stand out as an excellent student at least.'

Remus, who had only arrived today after finishing some essay corrections at Hogwarts and thus had only now seen the list looked thoughtful before he added: 'She is the same in her second year. Strange when you think of it, I wonder if she acts the same in her other classes.'

'I'm sure she does.' Susan smiles, 'Luna always acts a bit dreamy, she is very nice though.'

'And she is a good fighter.' Harry added quickly, 'I still remember the time that we started on whispered spell casting in the DA, she picked it up really fast. And in our free style duels she often uses very weird but effective tactics.'

Alice shrugged and pointed to Frank: 'We only know her from summer camp. And since she never caused any trouble we did not pay special attention to her… Didn't she win that ditch-crossing game?'

'Yeah she did. Beside that I fully agree with your opinion Alice, hard to judge someone that you only saw for two weeks.' Sirius grinned.

Lily looked around and when no one wanted to add anything she said: 'Good, she can stay on the list then. Although I'm not the one who will ask her father for permission to join… Oh, one last question, since she is only in second year… does any of you know her birthday?'

Harry looked at his friends. Most of the DA members brought some candy to the DA after their birthday, following Susan's example from first year. And while Harry could vaguely remember Luna's strange neon-orange sour treats he had no idea when she brought them. Eventually it was Neville who replied: 'I don't know for sure. But she only brought treats to the DA last year, so I guess it was in the second part of the school year.'

'That should work.' Lily nodded, 'Good, next we have what looks like every single Weasley in Hogwarts. Fred, George, Ron and Ginny?'

'There is also Percy.' Neville immediately replied, 'But he is not in the DA and he is leaving next year anyway.'

'Right.' Lily agreed with a smile, 'Still, you can imagine that we wondered if you would have invited every single on of them on their own merits or if it is a sort of a package deal.'

For some reason his friends all turned to Harry. He shrugged and replied: 'A bit of both I guess. We really want Fred and George to join, they invite the craziest things and are actually very good with magic if you can get them motivated. I guess one of them could work, but I think they either join together or they do not join at all.' Everybody nodded at that and Susan dryly added: 'Beside that, how would you pick one? I still can't tell them apart.'

Harry chuckled, he didn't think it was that hard to tell them apart, but he seemed to be the only one to think so. He continued: 'Ginny is actually an amazing fighter. She is lightning-fast and very powerful, and of course it helps that she is so small, makes it harder to hit her. And Ron is… well, he is not exceptionally bright or powerful to be honest, but not bad either, and all around he is still a very good fighter. Beside that he is the one who we actually turn to if we need help running the DA. And he is very good in chess and some of those muggle board games we played in summer camp, although we are not sure how that would translate into actual fighting.'

'That's a problem for everybody on the list though.' James replied, and when everybody looked at him he explained: 'We have to remember that all of them are kids, and they are untested in combat. It is very well possible that even the best student of all of Hogwarts will freeze in actual combat and gets defeated by a coldblooded opponent who is barely stronger than a squib. With four Weasleys we might actually have the added benefit that they will be forced to act when their siblings are threatened if any of them freezes.'

Everybody nodded but it seemed no one had specific arguments against or in favour of any of the Weasley kids. Again Lily said: 'Ginny is also a second year, do you know her birthday?'

'It's during the summer. She is one of the youngest in her year.' Harry immediately replied. He was sure he was not the only one to remember the delicious homemade cookies that Ginny had brought to the first DA meeting of this school year.

Lily looked a bit worried at that and when Harry wanted to explain again that Ginny was very powerful for her age she quickly said: 'I know Ginny was already powerful during her first year. And I am sure she will be a great witch someday. But the problem we have with second years joining is not their current power level. It has more to do with the fact that their bodies are still not matured enough for the physical and magical training that we want to start next year. I know I told you that girls matured a bit faster, so second year girls could work, but if she is one of the youngest in her year…'

'We can always ask for Madam Pomfrey's opinion.' Frank suggested, 'She is discrete enough.'

Lily nodded and made a note: 'That's a good idea. Maybe we should do the same for Luna, just in case.'

Hermione mock-frowned and pointed to Harry and Neville in turn: 'So you mean that our training got delayed one year just because those two are boys.'

With a smile Lily tried to explain that even if both of them were girls there summer birthdays would have probably made them wait a year, but her explanation was drowned in Sirius' barking laughter. When he calmed down a bit he said: 'I was just wondering how many of you would have survived physical training from Remus, the guy just does not know when to stop.'

They all looked at the usually calm man in wonder and Remus just shrugged: 'I guess it's true. Werewolf stamina you know? I just don't tire that easily so it is hard to guess when others get tired.'

Nobody really had anything to say to that. Harry somewhat wondered if it would be a good idea to get bitten by a werewolf to gain some benefits in his fight against Voldemort. But he was quite sure it was a stupid idea and thought it wiser not to share it. And most likely he would not be allowed to play quidditch anymore. No benefit would be worth that.

Lily moved on to the next name, apparently she wanted to move a bit faster for she immediately added some comments: 'Alicia Spinnet. Again, we do not really have anything against her. Pretty much all we know about her is that she is a quidditch player. She is a bit older than you, right?'

'Two years actually.' Hermione clarified, 'We specifically invited her because she is really good at quickly adapting to new situations during our mock fights.'

'Always good to have someone like that around.' Frank commented.

Lily quickly went to the next name when nobody spoke up: 'Katie Bell, pretty much the same reaction from our side. Quidditch player and older than you?'

'Only one year this time.' Harry said, 'And she has amazing accuracy with her spells. She can hit someone with a hex from the other side of the quidditch field. We tried once after practise.'

'As in a lucky shot? Or all the time?' James wanted to know. Harry frowned while trying to remember: 'I think she hit me seven out of ten times with a hair colour changing hex. Of course, I did not try to dodge, but we figured such a long range attack would be best used against unsuspecting enemies.'

James and several other adults whistled softly at that. And eventually he said: 'That is impressive, I'm not really sure if it would work very well in a team. But still…'

'Definitely.' Lily agreed before she looked at the next name: 'Padma Patil, isn't she one of those Indian twins?'

'Yes, the Ravenclaw sister.' Hermione replied, 'She is very smart and knows a lot of ancient Indian curses and spells. The only problem we have with her is that we are not sure if she could keep it all hidden from Parvati.'

Lily nodded and Sirius asked: 'And her sister is definitely not an option?'

Hermione shook her head: 'Parvati is nice enough and a decent fighter, but she is a bit of an airhead. And she is afraid to hurt others even when we are only using minor hexes in a mock duel.'

'Definitely something to pay attention to when you make your final choice.' Lily agreed, 'Anyway, if nobody has anything against Padma I think we should move on to Terry Boot. To be honest, none of us really remembered him from summer camp, and although I remember he was hovering between EE and O level for my class last year I can't say he made a lasting impression.'

'Terry is almost painfully shy.' Neville smiled, 'But once you get him to talk he is actually rather smart, and his magical defence is impressive. Even Harry had trouble tearing it down.'

Harry nodded in agreement before he added: 'Sadly, his attack is a bit lacking. But we figured we could think of a way to use his talents.'

'It is a good idea to have some people specialize in different directions.' James agreed with a thoughtful look, 'I guess a healer would be great, but that would be a bit too much to ask from a student.'

'Actually some of us are interested in becoming a healer, and we did study some healing spells.' Hermione argued, 'But I agree that we are not even close to the level that we can help someone with serious injuries.'

'If we approach Madam Pomfrey about those tests we might as well ask her if she is interested to show you some tricks.' Lily replied. Hermione beamed but before she could say anything about it Harry's mother continued: 'Next is Justin Finch-Fletchley. He is the first muggleborn on the list right?'

Harry frowned, he never really thought about so called the blood status of the other student. Apparently it was the same for the others, because it took a while before Susan said: 'I think Katie once mentioned that she is a halfblood. And I have no idea about Terry and Alicia. But the others are purebloods yeah, does it really matter?'

'No, of course not. It is just that we have to pay attention what we tell their parents if we approach them.' Lily simply replied.

'Ah, that makes sense.' Susan nodded with a glance to Hermione who carefully not looked back at Susan.

Frank filled the somewhat uncomfortable silence: 'So, why is Justin on the list?'

Harry shrugged: 'Basically because he is one of the best fighters we have in the DA. He does not really have a specialty, he is just very difficult to defeat.'

Remus grinned: 'He is one those typical Hufflepuffs, never gives up, no matter the odds.'

Lily nodded and when nobody said anything she continued: 'True enough from what I remember from last year. But what about Hannah Abbot? She was not exactly one of my best students last year.'

It was Neville who replied: 'She isn't a really good fighter, not really bad either. But according to Hermione she is unusually talented with healing spells.'

Hermione reluctantly nodded: 'It's like she somehow feels where and how to apply the spell. Of course, we only worked with simulations so far and we have no idea how she will do in the face of actual injuries…'

Again it was James who replied: 'That's the same for all of you though. No matter if you talk about fighting or healing. To be honest I'm not sure if you should use one of our fighting suits for a healer.'

'I don't know.' Alice argued, 'The idea that they have somewhat of an armed medic among them for first aid sounds good to me.'

James reluctantly nodded: 'But still… Anyway, eventually the four of you can make your final selection of course.'

Harry and the others all nodded, they were quite proud that their parents would let them have the final decision in this. Although of course everyone they picked would need permission from his or her parents as well. And their parents kept the right to block people if they did not trust them or their families. So far, they had agreed to everyone on the list, but Harry already knew that the last two would cause most discussion.

Lily continued: 'And then your list concludes with two Slytherins; Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis. While I think it is a good idea there were some arguments against it…' She looked around and Sirius took over: 'Yes, it's not like I have anything against them in person. And their families are not especially dark.' He chuckled, 'Beside that, who am I to talk. But nobody can convince me that Slytherin is not the breeding ground for death eaters. Is it a good idea to have two members of your inner circle in the enemy's lair?'

'It also offers advantages.' Susan shrugged, 'If Slytherin really harbours some junior death eaters they might overhear some useful things.'

Sirius nodded reluctantly: 'Sure, but they could do that without being in your inner circle… They only have some six months to learn occlumency, how do you prevent Snape from glancing some information if he really wants to?'

'Actually, they already know occlumency.' Harry replied, 'Daphne told me about it.'

'What an odd subject to discuss during a date.' James frowned.

Sirius head whipped towards James: 'Wait! Date? What date?'

Harry tried not to blush and James groaned: 'Argh, I promised myself I would not tell everybody about it. Sorry, Harry!' He did not look that sorry though.

'It's okay. It wasn't really a date anyway.' Harry tried to protest, but Sirius turned back to him and grinned: 'So, what did happen?'

Harry shrugged: 'Not much. Daphne and I just wanted to get out of Tomes and Scrolls instead of wasting all of our first Hogsmeade day in there.'

Next to him Hermione muttered: 'Instead you spent it in a cafe, whoohoo.' But Harry was sure he was the only one who heard her since Sirius groaned: 'Oh yes, I can see that. I remember how Remus used to be in that damned bookstore.' 'Hey!' Remus protested, but Sirius continued: 'I actually wondered why Lily wouldn't date him instead of James, she also was a book addict.' 'Hey!' Three voices objected for different reasons. Sirius looked at them in wonder and then quickly said: 'Right, maybe we should move on with the list. But one last question Harry; is she hot?'

Now Harry was sure he was blushing, but eventually he said: 'She is very pretty yeah.'

Sirius whistled but his mother came to his aid, well somewhat at least: 'I take it that's not the reason why she made the list though?'

Harry frantically shook his head: 'Oh no, she is an amazing fighter.'

'Yeah, and Tracey is really smart.' Hermione added.

'Good.' Lily nodded, 'So, Sirius, are you still against it?'

Sirius looked doubtful. Eventually he slowly said: 'I still think it would be better not to invite Slytherins, although if they join I will of course not treat them differently next year.'

'Frank?' Lily asked.

With a shrug Frank said: 'I am somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of Slytherin kids joining. But I trust in their judgement.' He pointed at Neville first and then at the others. 'So no objection from me.' Next to him Alice nodded her agreement.

'Remus?'

'I'm fine. They are both very good students and I see no reason to distrust them. Actually, the way I judge Snape they might actually be safer from his legilimency.' Remus commented.

'James?'

'I pretty much agree with what Frank and Susan said.' James replied, then he frowned and added: 'I'm quite happy that Malfoy is gone from Hogwarts though. I always figured he would be the ring leader in Slytherin, just like his father used to be.'

Lily nodded: 'Well, that makes my vote a bit useless, but for the record I'm in favour as well.' She turned to Sirius: 'So are you okay with it?'

Sirius shrugged: 'Sure, you make good arguments. And beside that, we all know that a Gryffindor could betray you as well. I think it is an added risk, but if you are all in favour then I won't argue against it.'

'Good enough.' Lily nodded, 'Oh, by the way, I noticed that there were only thirteen names? I expected you would have way too many names and then cut it down when we know how many extra suits there will be.'

The four of them looked at each other. Eventually Harry said: 'The problem is that we actually had trouble thinking of thirteen names. There are several others that wouldn't be bad, like Seamus, Dean and Megan for example. But none of them really stuck out.'

'You might want to add a few of them to the occlumency training from the start though, just to be sure.' Lily warned, then she turned to Remus and asked: 'Did that armourer already tell you how much suits there will be?'

'He didn't give a final number yet.' Remus admitted, 'But most likely he won't manage twenty-five, there were some bad scales.'

'I don't really get how he can give you a number without knowing all our sizes.' Susan wondered.

'He is fitting ours to size.' Remus replied, pointing at the other adults and himself. And for you and the other students he is crafting more flexible suits with inbuilt charms that adapt while you grow. Of course, since the scales themselves can not really grow that means they will have to be returned several times for adjustments. But he is saving enough scales for that.'

'Although if all of you turn out to be unusually tall we will most likely have to buy some extra scales.' Sirius added, 'Which would be very expensive, so stop eating so much!'

There were some chuckles and Lily said: 'Well, I guess that means we are done. That means that for the rest of the Christmas vacation you all have some free time. Well, beside the occlumency check-up next week.'

'No, wait!' Harry protested, 'I want to know why dad had to meet up with a Canadian journalist.'

The adults chuckled at his outburst and James started to explain: 'Well, I think you all share our opinion that the Daily Prophet's quality is poor at best. And beside that it is controlled by the ministry. So we are thinking of starting a competing newspaper. And David Burke, the Canadian I met, is one of the foreign journalists that we are trying to recruit.'

'Why foreign journalists?' Susan wondered.

'Because the only British journalists we know of work for the Daily Prophet.' Lily replied, 'And there isn't really a wizarding journalist school where we can find talented newcomers. We are going to ask David and the others to come to Britain for a few years to start the paper and train a few British journalists though, so that in a few years they can return home and our newspaper still will still have a decent staff.'

'Sounds cool.' Harry shrugged, he had hoped for something more exciting. Although he had no idea what exactly.

'On that note I declare it is time to start enjoying our vacation!' Sirius cheered, 'Last one outside gets pelted by snowballs!' And he ran of, quickly followed by half the room.

_A/N: Lot's of talking again, I was tempted to magically teleport a dragon into the room halfway through the chapter. Just for some action :P But it did not really make sense. And I guess the list needed some time since the members of this little club will be important soon. I'm open for suggestions on those members by the way, not to say that I will necessarily listen, but I am interested in your opinions at least;) Here's the list again, easier than reading the chapter time and time again to memorize all the names_

_Luna Lovegood_

_Fred Weasley_

_George Weasley_

_Ron Weasley_

_Ginny Weasley_

_Alicia Spinnet_

_Katie Bell_

_Padma Patil_

_Terry Boot_

_Justin Finch-Fletchley_

_Hannah Abbot_

_Daphne Greengrass_

_Tracey Davis_


	48. Occlumency training

**Occlumency training**

It was already the fourth of their new occlumency training sessions which included all the students from the list and most other third years from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. And by now things were settling into a routine. Susan and Neville worked with the Hufflepuffs. Tracey and Hermione were working with the theory oriented Ravenclaws. Harry and Daphne worked with most of the Gryffindors, who were more interested in just doing occlumency than in reading about it. This meant that he had already seen some memories from his housemates that he could have done without.

Beside that, Fred and George were working with Luna. Harry had not really been surprised when he heard that the twins had taught themselves occlumency as soon as they found out why professor Snape kept seeing through their excuses. It was a surprise that Luna also had some kind of defence against legilimency. Although her particular defence had nothing to do with regular occlumency. So the twins were trying to work out what was going on in Luna's head and if it would be strong enough to keep a legilimens at bay.

With two sessions a week the occlumency training took away a lot of time, but they really had to get everybody up to speed before the summer vacation. Of course, it didn't help that their other classes also took a lot of time. Both his new subjects turned out to be quite complicated. In arithmancy they had finally finished the practise book and they were now calculating the magical energy of some simple spells like lumos. It was really interesting to see the difference between lumos spells from various people. And of course Hermione and he had later on experimented with the effect of the rune dagaz. It easily made the spell twice as strong, and both of them really looked forward to work with more and more runes and arithmancy.

Beside that, their normal classes were getting harder as well. In defence Remus really focused on magical animals and how to defend against them, which was very interesting and a different approach from last year. But all other subjects became more and more difficult. It did not really help that by now their Hogwarts education was outrunning the preschool classes they had received at Lionfire Hall. Only in transfiguration did they still have an edge from their animagus training. But in potions and charms they had to study the new potions and spells. Which was alright in charms, although by now they were using charms on each other which meant they had to be absolutely sure that they knew what they were doing before trying a new spell like the cheering charm. But Harry had to say that Snape was a worthless teacher. He would just put the instructions for a new potion on the blackboard at the start of the class and expected students to work it out for themselves.

It was a good thing that he was friends with Hermione and Neville. Hermione because she was scarily brilliant and Neville because his deep knowledge about herbology helped them all along in both potions and herbology. At least in that last subject they still had the same amounts of homework, instead it were the classes themselves that became harder. You really had to pay attention when working between dangerous plants. Although last weeks puffapods had been rather safe.

Astrology and history of magic were still the same as ever. Which meant pretty interesting and not too taxing for the first and dreadfully boring for the second. Still, combine all those classes with the DA and the new occlumency sessions and the week was filled to the brim. Right now Harry and the other three were really happy about his mother's advice not to pick a third elective. Even now, he was sometimes thinking if he should stop playing quidditch. Especially around match days Wood would insist on practising three or even four times a week, which made those weeks even crazier. Of course, his friends took a lot of work of his shoulders during those weeks, but he felt rather guilty about that. Still, every time he mounted his new firebolt and took to the skies he realized that he would never be able to give up on quidditch.

Suddenly he was tapped on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked to a smirking Daphne who said: 'Well done Harry, I did not manage to get a single memory of your birthday. Instead I got a lot of thoughts about our classes and quidditch.'

Harry shrugged: 'Seems about right.' Then he turned to their students. A grand total of eight Gryffindors and said: 'I did not use a single occlumency shield against Daphne tough. Which means that all of you should be able to keep a legilimens from finding any specific memory by focusing on something else. Of course, it helps to pick a subject that's interesting enough to keep your attention for a while and also innocent enough that you do not mind someone else finding out. For example, you might avoid thinking about a love interest. Although that probably would work great.' He concluded dryly.

It was Katie Bell who made the logical comment: 'But you can hardly expect us to keep thinking about school all day?'

'No, of course not. But it will take a few years to learn how to perfectly defend your mind. So, instead we will teach you the basics so that you can recognize it when a legilimens tries to read your thoughts. Then you can simply hinder him by focusing on some kind of subject. Or hex him. Or scream bloody murder.' Harry explained.

'Or all of the above!' Ginny merrily added.

'That works too.' Daphne smiled, 'Sometimes I still wonder about the differences between our houses.'

'Why's that?' Seamus wanted to know, somehow it seemed he always was one of the first to speak up if there was a pretty girl answering questions.

Daphne shrugged: 'If you guys were a group of Slytherins half of you would be telling me they should be in charge. The other half would want to know why I had the idea that I could teach them anything. And the next half would be scheming among each other.'

'Apparently they also have too many halves in Slytherin.' Ron dryly concluded. He was a lot friendlier to Daphne, Tracey and the younger Slytherins in the DA by now. Although he still tended to stick with his own housemates.

Again Daphne shrugged: 'Could be. Anyway, we should get back to the meditation practise.' Most of the Gryffindors groaned and Harry took over: 'I know it's dull, but it is really important. And it actually might help you in other classes or during homework as well. I mean, most of you 'medidate' during history already.'

They all looked at him in wonder, apparently his joke was not that funny. He quickly looked back to Daphne who started to explain the process of meditation once more. The rest of the session passed in relative silence.

— Three weeks later —

The weather could not have been more different from their last quidditch match. The sky was clear and combined with the slight breeze it made for almost perfect quidditch conditions. Wood was fretting that the Ravenclaw seeker, Cho Chang, had recovered from her injuries and was able to play. Harry somewhat wondered what kind of injuries would take that long to heal under Madam Pomfrey's care. Of course he knew Cho from the DA, and she had missed the last two meetings. So he guessed Wood was right about her injury. While he could see that she had quick reflexes and fast reactions he was not really worried when Wood told him that she was an extremely good flier. The pretty Asian was flying a comet two sixty. Which was nowhere close to Harry's new firebolt. Of course, he knew that the better broom did not guarantee him a win. But he felt rather confident that Cho was not going to out fly him today.

As soon as the whistle sounded he shot into the sky and started to speed over the pitch. He had to laugh when he heard Lee's commentary focusing on the firebolt instead of on the game. Only minutes in the game did he spot the snitch for the first time and quickly he soared towards it. Seconds before he could catch it he had to evade a bludger and lost sight of the snitch, which made the Gryffindor stands shout in disappointment.

Apparently Cho had quickly realized that she was no match to the pure speed of Harry's new broom. So instead she was now trying to block his flight. Time and time again he had to evade quickly to avoid a collision. Which of course hindered his own search for the snitch. Meanwhile Ravenclaw was coming back in the game after the initial offensive of Gryffindor, they were still fifty points behind though. After every successful block Cho's smile broadened, and Harry had to admit that she was really pretty. He had never really noticed that during the DA, maybe it was the quidditch robes. Any thoughts in that direction were blocked when Wood bellowed: 'HARRY! THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO BE A GENTLEMAN! KNOCK HER OFF HER BROOM IF YOU HAVE TO!'

He was right of course, there was no way that he was going to lose during his first match on a firebolt. Quickly, he rose some hundred feet, Cho right behind him. Then he turned into a very steep dive. He could only guess that Cho was following him, since he could not look back. Halfway to the ground he suddenly saw a flash of gold and he pushed himself towards it. Of course this meant that he was now hanging below his broom, clinging to it with his arms and legs. He saw Cho's astonished look when she dived past him but he totally ignored it and managed to turn around to a more conventional position. Sure enough he had seen the snitch, it was hovering near the Ravenclaw goal posts. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cho pulling out of her own dive, but she was way too slow. Harry skilfully avoided another bludger before his left hand wrapped itself around the tiny golden ball.

_A/N: Bit of a short chapter, but I was really grasping for things to happen in third year. With the whole Sirius storyline gone there is not much left in canon, so in the end I simply took the second quidditch match to fill this chapter out a bit. I think I'm going to wrap up third year with one more James chapter, and then we head on to fourth year which will see a lot more action. _

_Next update will probably be a bit slower than usual since I will spend the weekend in Belgium, far away from my keyboard. _


	49. Back to the Burrow

**Back to the Burrow**

James wondered why he was always the one to visit the Burrow. This was the third time that they had to ask the Weasley's something, and again he was the one walking towards the rickety building. Of course, the first time Lily had been with him. But now she was visiting the parents of the muggleborn students. And he guessed it made sense not to send Sirius to the Burrow. He and Molly Weasley simply did not work well together. Frank and Alice were visiting the Abbot and Boot families, who were traditionally closer with the Longbottoms. And with Remus at Hogwarts he guessed he was the only option left.

Not that it really bothered him; Molly was friendly enough, if a bit overprotective and too worrisome about her children every now and then. And he loved her homemade cookies. It did not really surprise him when he heard noise from behind the house, but just to be polite he knocked on the front door and waited a few moments before he walked around the house.

Once there he found Molly standing in the middle of what looked like an unorganized chaos of flying pieces of fruit. He saw apples, pears, peaches and grapes flying around in long lines and moving into a haphazard collection of different sized jars. Some jars already had a lid upon them and were spinning around in dizzying circles. He wondered what kind of spells Molly was using, and what the purpose of the spinning jars was. And so it was that he did not notice that there was another Weasley in the back yard, which meant that he nearly jumped two feet when a male voice sounded from a few feet to his left: 'I think your visitor has arrived mum.'

He tried to act like nothing happened and looked at the tall redhead who had just spoken. The young man was a few inches taller than him, his red hair was bound in a ponytail and an odd earring with a long fang attached to it dangled from one of his ears. Meanwhile Molly came bustling towards them and said: 'James, welcome! Bill just showed up earlier today to help me with the fruit. And I guess I forgot the time for a bit.'

'Oh, that's alright.' James quickly replied before offering a hand to Bill and saying: 'Bill? That means you are the eldest, right? Oh, and I am James Potter by the way.'

Bill shook his hand and said: 'Yup, that's me. Nice to meet you, most of my younger siblings were very enthusiastic about their summer camps at your place.'

'Most?' James wondered aloud.

With a shrug Bill replied: 'Charlie and Percy have never been there of course.'

'Oh, right! Of course.' James quickly answered, 'I keep forgetting that there are so many of you. I mean, the four that do attend our camps are already the biggest family group.'

Bill grinned and Molly smiled: 'I bet Fred and George make it look like there are even more Weasley's.'

With a chuckle James replied: 'Well, I admit that it is hard not to notice them. But anyway, I still have another visit to go after this one. Do you mind if I move on to the purpose of my visit?'

'Not at all.' Molly waved towards a few chairs that stood in the shadow of a large tree and soon enough all three of them were seated. James hesitated for a few seconds before he looked at Bill and asked: 'Are you in the Order of the Phoenix as well Bill?'

Bill looked surprised: 'Actually, I am. But I thought it was supposed to be a secret? The Order I mean.'

James shrugged: 'It is. More or less at least. Me and some others were members during the first rise of Voldemort, and while we chose not to join again we do work together with Dumbledore and the Order when we can.' He noticed the look on Molly's face and chuckled: 'Your mother doesn't approve.'

Molly actually blushed: 'It's just that I wonder why you are not simply joining the Order. Wouldn't it be better if we all work together under one leader?'

Again James hesitated. He knew how popular Dumbledore was for most of the wizarding world, eventually he said: 'In theory I agree with you Molly. And with a different leader, we might have joined.' Immediately he saw Molly's expression turning into shock while Bill's face looked surprised and he continued: 'It's not like we do not have respect for Dumbledore. All of us think he is a brilliant teacher and researcher and a very good politician. We just don't see him as a war leader. It's okay now that Voldemort-' Molly flinched, but James was pleasantly surprised when Bill didn't, '- is still hiding. But sooner or later there will be raids and skirmishes. I somewhat hope that Albus will hand over leadership to Moody or maybe Kingsley when that time arrives, but I'm afraid he will not. After all, he didn't do so the last time.'

Bill frowned while Molly protested: 'But Dumbledore was the one to take out Grindelwald. And he is the only one that you-know-who ever feared.'

'I'm not sure about that second part.' James shrugged, but he quickly moved on since he could hardly mention the prophecy. 'And while Dumbledore is most likely still the strongest fighter on our side he lacks a certain ruthlessness. I have been reading a lot of history books about Grindelwald, and reading between the lines I think Dumbledore could have challenged Grindelwald a lot earlier. He seemed reluctant to do so, although I have no idea why he waited so long. Anyway, it's the same right now… We all know that sooner or later there will be a war. But Albus chooses to focus on finding allies and alerting the ministry instead of actually preparing for that war. Not that those things aren't important, but a few friendly giants will not win us the war.'

'How is your group preparing?' Bill wanted to know just before Molly could utter a protest again.

James shrugged: 'Basically we train ourselves, both in magic and in combat situations. We want to be ready when Voldemort returns, which is part of the reason why I came here.'

When none of the Weasley's replied he continued: 'Of course, you both know that Voldemort's body was destroyed when he tried to attack my family some thirteen years ago?' They both nodded and James went on: 'We have reason to believe that he will try to avenge himself now that he returned to his own body.'

Molly nodded again with a worried look on her face and Bill asked: 'But what does that have to do with our family?'

James hesitated, unsure how to say it. Eventually he tried: 'Well, Harry got some very good friends at Hogwarts. Including four of the Weasley family. What we are worried about is that Voldemort will try to strike at Harry.' Molly gasped. 'And while Harry and three of his friends received a lot of extra training from us we would like to offer the same to a bit larger group.'

Bill frowned: 'Just to make them stand with him if Voldemort attacks? It seems unlikely that a few more children will make a difference against a monster like that.'

'We do not expect them to win the war.' James immediately replied, 'Nor will we actively send them into danger. But do you agree with me that it is likely that Voldemort will try and attack my son sometime?' As soon as both Weasley's reluctantly nodded he continued: 'And do you for a moment believe that Ron, Ginny, Fred or George would stand aside if that happened?'

Again Bill frowned and Molly muttered something that sounded like 'They'd better…' but eventually she was the first to shake her head and admit: 'You are right of course. They would never leave a friend alone in the face of danger.'

Bill reluctantly shrugged: 'I guess you are right. One of the hardest things for me to learn as a curse breaker was that there are situations where I should do just that. Some of the ancient traps are so dangerous that there is no use trying to help your colleagues, luckily enough I never encountered one?'

'You're a curse breaker?' James asked and when Bill nodded he continued: 'I have been trying to find a trustworthy curse breaker to check the wards at Lionfire Hall. Judging from what I know of your family… Would you be interested? Standard security and pay of course.' This meant an unbreakable oath never to reveal anything of the defences of Lionfire Hall to others. But it would allow Bill himself to remember what he saw, which could help him during other jobs. Many families would request improved security which included an oblivation spell after the work was done.

Bill's eyes almost comically widened: 'The wards of Lionfire Hall? Those are legendary, I would love to get the opportunity to study them.'

'Great, we'll work something out. But let's stay on topic.' James turned to Molly: 'Would you agree that it is a good idea to get your youngest four kids a bit more prepared for war?'

Molly hesitated for a long time. Bill did not offer any advice, instead he just waited for his mother's decision. Eventually Molly said: 'I'll have to discuss this with Arthur of course. And while I see your point I am a bit reluctant to allow it… Is it really necessary? I mean, they won't be allowed to join the Order or the auror division for years…'

'The point is that Voldemort does not really care about age limits.' James simply replied, and he frowned when Molly flinched again. He wonder how much help some adults would be if the war really got going if they could not even stand the name of the enemy.

Molly shrugged helplessly: 'You're right of course. But as I said, I need to discuss this with Arthur.' James nodded, that only made sense. After all, Lily would flay him alive if he made a decision like this without talking to her. Eventually it was Bill who said: 'Can you tell us a bit more about what you are planning to do?'

'Of course.' James smiled. 'Basically we plan to work on both their magical and physical strength. Next to that we will focus on combat training, healing and standard security spells and maybe wards. Another thing is that we will provide all the children that join with full magical body armor.'

'What kind of armor?' Bill wanted to know.

'Basilisk hide armor.' James replied, 'It is very resistant to all magic, although somewhat vulnerable to fire.'

Again Bill's eyes widened and Molly stammered: 'Basilisk hide? But… that's very expensive… I'm not sure if…'

James waved her reply away: 'There will be no costs involved. Did you hear about the basilisk in Hogwarts last year?'

With a grimace Molly answered: 'Yes, I did. It was supposed to be somewhat of a secret, so naturally Fred and George knew all about it.'

James chuckled: 'Anyway, since our family killed the damn thing we claimed its skin for our own use. A French magical armourer is creating several sets of it and we are planning to give the extra ones away to the kids that join Harry and his friends in this special training group. Of course, we will also provide all the adjustments they need until they stop growing.'

Both Molly and Bill looked slightly bemused at this. Eventually Bill said: 'I think the twins and Ron and Ginny will benefit a lot from this program. I wish there had been something like that when I was at Hogwarts.'

Molly nodded in agreement and said: 'Still, I have to discuss it with your father. And with the four of them of course, although judging from how they talk about the DA and the summer camps I can't see them not going for this.' Suddenly she frowned: 'Will this mean that we see even less of them during the summer?'

'A bit.' James admitted. 'We are planning to have our summer camp just before the final of the Quidditch world cup. Then we will end the official part about a week before the final and keep the ones that will join in the new program a few days longer. We will show them a few basic exercises they can work on during the summer. Then, three or four days before the final we will escort all of them home, or bring them to the world cup site along with us if they prefer that.'

'I see…' Molly slowly replied, 'I can't say the idea of turning my children into little soldiers really attracts me. But if it helps them survive… And I agree with you, you-know-who will not respect their youth.' She shivered and said: 'Oh, I know your family usually doesn't do things like that, so I take it there are no loyalty contracts or something like that involved?'

With a shrug James replied: 'Actually, Lily is working on a very specific spell that she is going to attach to the basilisk hide sets. It is a sort of modified portkey spell that will transfer the suit plus its current wearer into a safe room deep inside Lionfire Hall whenever the current wearer carries a dark mark. That room will be blocked against outgoing apparations or portkeys and even house elf apparition. Its doors will only open to Potter house elves. If any of the children ever betrays us we will get him or her back. More likely, if one of the armour sets get stolen by death eaters it will return to us. But beside that people are free to leave if they want, nor will we force them to join the war. Although of course there is a possibility that we ask the basilisk sets back and give them to people who are actually fighting. Those things are to valuable to simply collect dust.'

Molly nodded, clearly satisfied with the idea that her children would not be forced to fight. But Bill looked confused: 'How would she ever get that to work? Doesn't she need someone with a dark mark to even start her research?'

'She is working with a former death eater yeah.' James shortly replied, he still wasn't to happy about that idea himself.

Bill apparently got the hint, for he didn't ask anything else, although he still looked thoughtful. Suddenly James remembered something: 'Oh, and Molly, I figured I should ask you if it is okay if we approach Percy for something totally different as well.'

'Oh?' Was all that Molly had to say to that.

'Well, you see, we are starting our own newspaper.' James started to explain, 'The first edition will be published in May, just a bit before the OWLs and NEWTs. We were thinking about asking Percy and the head girl to do a minor piece about the exams. Nothing too big of course, since they will need the time for their studies. But maybe we just repeat one question of each exam in the newspaper and let them write down their answers if they took the subject. And if not, they can hopefully ask another student to do it.'

'Oh, I see. I guess that will be nice.' Molly nodded, 'Beside that, Percy is old enough to refuse if he doesn't want to do it.' She looked thoughtful for a few moments: 'You know that Fred and George are also doing their OWLs this year?'

With a laugh James replied: 'I really like those two, but I think no one would consider our newspaper seriously if we asked them about their OWL answers.'

'More something for the quibbler.' Bill deadpanned.

Molly chuckled: 'Yes, I see your point. I am still a bit worried about how they will do, although I have to admit that they improved a lot during the last two or three years. Before that it was like one of them was interested in charms and potions while the other one only cared for defence and transfiguration.' James grinned and she suddenly changed the subject: 'Why are you starting a new newspaper anyway? I thought you were busy enough preparing for the war?'

With a sigh James started to explain how the newspaper might actually help them and how they thought the Daily Prophet was undermining the war effort. He was not really surprised when Molly did not agree, although Bill looked thoughtful and mentioned something about the Egyptian wizarding newspaper. He could only hope that their own newspaper would open some eyes in Britain.

_A/N: Next chapter will most likely start during the summer vacation. I've been thinking of writing another third year chapter around the launch of the newspaper, but not quite sure how to make it work. Beside that, I want the whole thing to be a bit of a supporting plotline, not something that draws to much time and attention away from the main storyline._


	50. The paper arrives

**The paper arrives**

The day started quite normal, and Harry was almost done with his breakfast when a huge amount of owls suddenly entered the great hall. Normal post had already been delivered, so everybody looked up in surprise. Both because of the time of the arrival and due to the incredible number of owls. There were at least several hundred. Well, not everybody looked up in surprise. Harry and his friends knew that this was going to happen today. And so did Remus, he had been working on a spell to allow the owls into the great hall after the normal post delivery time after all.

Soon enough all the owls were finding spots to land on the crowded house tables and started to deliver their _Daily Heralds_. There was some confusion when the birds simply lifted of again when students tried to pay them. But soon enough most of them noticed the text below the name of the paper that explained that all of wizarding Britain would receive free copies for the first week of this new newspaper.

Just below that there was a huge interview with Harry's parents about that Halloween night when Voldemort's body was destroyed. Naturally all around him people started to read it. Harry simply started to browse the paper. His parents had already shown him the interview and prepared him for the onslaught of questions he would most likely receive today. Most important was that he had to pretend that he did not know exactly what happened that night, or why Voldemort decided to attack them. In the interview his parents were rather vague about how they actually defeated Voldemort, instead they used some commonplaces like 'any wizard can be defeated by the right preparations' and 'no wizard, no matter how powerful, is actually invincible'.

Still, he had read it already and skipped to the next page. There were quite a few pages about wizarding Britain in general and its politics and economy, and he quickly skipped them, only looking at the headlines. Same with the pages about foreign news. He did notice that the lay-out was a lot friendlier to the eye than the cramped pages of the _Daily Prophet._

Then he actually found a page dedicated to Hogwarts. He quickly looked over it and found mostly general information about the school and the four houses. However, there also was a column that explained there would be interviews with teachers and students on this page from now on. That could be interesting. It was followed by similar pages dedicated to Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley and a general page about entertainment and daily life in the magical world. There was a long article about some play about Merlin's life and some smaller pieces about a cleaning spell and the magical properties of gillyweed. There even were some personal ads. Apparently Hermione and Susan were also browsing through the paper; he heard Susan wondering if Sirius had written all the personal ads by himself.

Next he stopped at the sports section. He smiled when he saw an article about how Puddlemere United had defeated Pride of Portree again. It was a shame that he could not tease his father about it right now. He quickly browsed through the other match reports before moving on again. After the sports section there were a few pages about the muggle world. The first page gave a quick and very basic overview about muggle news. The second and third pages, which included a lot of unmoving photographs, explained some part of muggle technology. Today there was a very basic explanation about the history and technology of airplanes.

Ron, who was sitting to Harry's right was just finishing up with the main interview, and when he looked at Harry he noticed the article about airplanes and exclaimed: 'Wow, dad will love that! He has been wondering how airplanes fly for years.'

Harry grinned: 'Yeah, my parents thought it would be an interesting subject. Mum wanted to start with an article about the first time that muggles went to the moon. But dad figured it would be a bit over the top for a first edition. So now they are working towards it with a few other articles.'

Ron blinked a few times before he said: 'Muggles went to the moon? You're kidding, right?'

From Harry's other side Neville replied: 'I said the same when they told me, but apparently it's true.'

Ron shook his head and then refocused: 'Your parents are behind this newspaper then?'

Harry shrugged, not sure how much he was allowed to say about that: 'Let's say they are involved. They are not actually writing any articles or so. More like behind the scenes.'

'Ah.' Ron nodded, then he pointed towards the interview: 'That's hardly behind the scenes. Is it all true?'

Again Harry shrugged: 'Guess so. I was one year old at the time, so I only know what they told me.'

Thoughtfully Ron looked at the paper again: 'They make it sound so… normal. Like Voldemort is just any other dark wizard that can be beaten.' Then he finally turned the page.

Harry smiled to Neville and Hermione, who both had been listening to his small talk with Ron. They both smiled in return, happy to know that at least one reader had shown exactly the reaction that James and Lily had been aiming for with their interview. Voldemort's mythical status needed to be downgraded a bit after all. Susan had simply ignored them, she was too engrossed in the sports section.

During the day many other people approached Harry and asked him the same question. Every time he told them that he did not remember anything about it, and that he had no reason to distrust his parents. A large part of the students seemed to think along the same lines as Ron, but several others just looked doubtful or even distrusting. It was a good thing that none of that last group had been in their occlumency classes.

_A/N: A very short chapter as a bit of an extra update. I'm trying to get my regular update up by Sunday evening, but no guarantees;) There were a few reviewers that suggested that there should be at least some attention for the launch of the newspaper. I figured they were right, but could not really fit it into my planned chapter. So instead of that I wrote this little update. _


	51. Hide and seek

**Hide and seek**

Once again the first five days of summer camp had been great fun. So far they had focused on the now traditional paintball, quidditch, football and board games next to some advanced spell work of course. It was a shame that they could not work on their animagus forms during summer camp, they had made some large steps during the start of the summer vacation. Harry only had his feet and head to go now. Tonight would be this summer's special event though, and although a large number of the other students had asked Harry all about it he also had absolutely no clue about what was going to happen. Although he had the suspicion that it had something to do with a maze or something. Yesterday they had suddenly reviewed the point me charm between all kinds of combat hexes and shields.

Shortly after noon many of the adults suddenly disappeared. And only Hermione's parents were overseeing the free for all paintball game, which turned into a bloodbath. Or a paintbath at least. As usual it were the Weasley twins who started the mayhem, this time by creating a huge banner which promised free products of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes to anyone that managed to hit one of their fellow Gryffindor quidditch players. Harry and the three chaser girls quickly created a counter offer and their banner offered free Honeydukes chocolate to anyone who shot the twins. Apparently both the wheezes and the chocolate was about equally popular, and soon enough large groups of people were hunting the various Gryffindor quidditch players. Most of them did not even care if they shot the twins or the others, both offered bounty after all. Beside that, nobody really cared about their own defence anymore, which only increased the general chaos.

When Edna finally blew her whistle to end the game Harry could barely see the dark blue colour of the protective overall that he was wearing anymore. Instead, there was a huge colourful mess of pink, orange, yellow, green and a few other bright colours. Angelina, Alicia and Katie pretty much looked the same, although Angelina's usually black braids looked especially weird now. But the twins were even worse to look at, there had been only two of them after all. They were covered in paint from head to toe, and George was complaining that he could not move his left arm anymore due to the dried up paint. Oddly enough even the paint patterns somehow seemed alike, although not as identical as their usual looks.

After a hot shower and some healing spells from Tonks, who had arrived back at Lionfire Hall halfway through the game and had been cheering like a maniac, Harry quickly sent Hedwig away to Honeydukes with an order for four large boxes of chocolate. The chaser girls would pay him back for their share.

Just before dinner most of the adults reappeared. And after the meal they asked all the kids to go and grab some warm coats. As soon as they all had done so Lily started to explain: 'After last years successful nightly ditch crossing game we decided to go for an improved version this year. We will split all of you into pairs and each pair will receive a portkey that will deliver them to tonights gaming area. Beside that, they will receive a compass and an instruction on how to find their 'treasure'. The goal of the game is to find your treasure and keep it in your possession for thirty minutes. If both of you are stunned or lose your wands you will have to return the treasure, then shoot some red sparks into the air and one of us will come and get you. You will lose three points and we will bring you to another starting point. If you keep your treasure for thirty minutes it will start beeping, make sure that both of you touch it at that time because it will portkey you to the victory area. Where you will receive five points and another set of instructions. Also, if your duo steals the treasure of another duo you earn two points. Any questions so far?'

No one had anything to ask and Remus added: 'To make things more interesting six of us-' He waved around the adults, 'will be patrolling the area and attack you if we find you. Of course, you are allowed to disarm or stun us. Just make sure that if you stun us, or anyone else for that matter, you also enervate us. The adults will not attack you for the next five minutes after being enervated, while other duo's will have to shoot some red sparks and start anew. We don't want anyone lying on the floor for a long time though, it's not that warm.'

'Where are we going anyway?' Justin Finch-Fletchley wanted to know.

The adults looked at each other, eventually James shrugged: 'It does not really matter if they know. We're heading to a small forest in Germany. It is surrounded by meadows, which you should not enter, unless you are portkeyed to the victory area that is. But beside that you all have to stay in the forest. It is more than large enough for all of you together anyway.'

'Anything we should know about the forest?' Hermione wanted to know, she always wanted to be prepared.

'Not really.' James shrugged, 'There are no big predators to watch out for or anything. There is a small river winding through it, but you'll notice that soon enough.'

'Are we allowed to ally with other duos?' Padma Patil asked.

Again James shrugged: 'It is not like you are forced to attack each other. But you won't earn any points for helping another team either.'

'If there are no other questions we'll just have to show you the prizes before moving to the pairings.' Lily continued. She waited a few moments to see if there were any questions, and then she whipped her wand to a nearby table. Suddenly a lot of items showed up and she explained: 'There are six prizes in total, the duo that ends up first can pick two, than the second and third duo's. I think we managed some rather interesting prizes. There is a Cleansweep Nine, a very nice wizard chess set, a large collection of magical firework from Fred and George, a wizard radio that is also adapted to receive muggle stations and two nicely painted warhammer armies. I have been told that there are Bretonnian knights and a lizardman army. Whatever those may be.'

There were a lot of excited reactions to the prize table. And Harry knew that everybody would try their best during tonight's game. For himself he was very interested in one of those warhammer armies. During this camp they had finally worked out most of the rules and had played some very interesting games with the four armies that had been around Lionfire Hall for the last three years. It had helped a lot that Dean Thomas apparently had an older cousin who played the game that had been only to happy to explain it to Dean. Judging from the reactions around him most people were interested in the broom, but since he already had a Firebolt he did not really care about it.

Soon enough, the pairing started. Harry was not sure if he should be happy or upset when he was paired with Daphne Greengrass. Daphne herself had been seated only a few steps away from him during the whole pairing and instruction and when she noticed his expression she simply raised one questioning eyebrow. Harry quickly explained: 'It just bothers me that my parents have been teasing me about our so-called date at Hogsmeade for a while now. I'm not sure if I really like the idea that they paired us together now.'

Daphne looked thoughtful for a few moments. Then she nodded: 'I can see why that would bother you. My parents were trying to set me up with a boy once as well, I didn't speak to them for a week.' After a short silence she added: 'Of course, it was Malfoy. So I think I let them of lightly.'

Harry snorted: 'Right. If my parents tried to get me interested in Malfoy I'd run away from home.'

'I can see that he would not really be your type.' Daphne dryly replied, then she added: 'So you're not going to run away for being paired up with me for tonight?'

'No.' was everything that Harry managed to reply to that. It was most likely a good thing that Remus interrupted them to hand over a small piece of rope which would be their portkey and a small bag that they were not allowed to open yet. Soon enough everybody had a portkey and Remus issued some last instructions: 'The portkeys will leave in one minute. When you arrive you will find yourself in the middle of a light blue circle drawn on the ground. That circle can only be seen from the inside. As long as you stay inside of it you will be invisible to anyone else, so you have some time to prepare yourself. Sounds will also not leave the circle. As soon as you leave the circle the enchantment fades. Also, if you do not understand the instructions simply raise a hand before leaving the circle and one of us will come and help you.'

Everybody nodded to this and soon enough the familiar tug of portkeytravel took everybody away. The transfer took a bit longer than usual and Harry landed on a root and crashed backwards with wildly flailing arms. He groaned, both from the impact and from the fact that he had not made a fool of himself during a portkey landing for years now.

Daphne smirked at him and offered him a hand. He accepted it and while Daphne helped him stand up she innocently asked: 'Did you just fall?'

He tried to think of a smart reply, but the best he could think of was: 'No, I attacked the ground.'

'Backwards?'

'Yeah, I'm cool like that.'

Again Daphne smirked once more and after a small break she asked: 'So, did you win?'

Harry shrugged: 'It's not moving anymore, is it?'

'Right.' Daphne agreed, before pointedly looking around. Harry followed her example and noticed that they were indeed in the middle of a forest. Dusk was already settling in and without thinking he transfigured his clothes to black. Next to him Daphne did the same and followed it with a hair-colour changing charm which turned her blond hair into a dark brown very much like Harry's hair. Harry nodded towards her hair: 'Nice one, last year you used some kind of a scarf to hide it I think?'

'Yeah, I made mum teach me the hair-colour charm after that. Just in case we were going to do the same game this year. She was rather upset that I was going to hide my normal hair.'

Privately Harry thought that Daphne's mum had a point, but he did not really dare to say that out loud yet. Instead he opened the small bag that Remus had given him and pulled out a piece of parchment. He read it and said aloud: 'Our first instruction is to walk 50 degrees for 500 feet until we find a white tree with a black cross painted on it.'

Daphne blinked a few times: '50 degrees? Oh wait, I guess that's why we did the point me spell yesterday.' She laid her wand on her hand and said 'point-me'. Immediately, the tip of the wand pointed to the north and she continued: 'Now, a 50 degree corner would mean that we have to go into that direction.' She pointed before adding. 'More or less at least, I'm not that good at guessing. I do wonder how the younger students will ever work this out.'

'Most younger students were paired with older students I think. Our year is actually in the middle of the DA members, so most of us got paired with year mates. Beside that, they could simply use the compass.' Harry dryly replied, he had pulled the second and last item out of the bag halfway through Daphne's monologue. Although he had to admit that he was impressed by how fast she had thought of that. It would have took him a lot longer.

'A what?' Daphne asked while looking at the small compass in Harry's hand.

'You don't know compasses?' Harry asked, although most likely he would not have had a clue about them either if it wasn't for his muggle ground school. Daphne just shrugged and looked at him, so he put the compass flat on his hand, waited a few seconds for the arrow to stabilize and carefully position the N to the top of the arrow. Then he explained: 'This arrow always points to the north, as you can see there are numbers on the edge of the circle. So as long as I hold the compass like this we can simply walk in the direction of the fifty.'

'Nice.' Daphne agreed, 'How does it work? The arrow I mean.'

'No idea.' Harry admitted, 'I think it has something to do with magnetic fields.'

'Magnetic fields?' Daphne asked before she shook her head, 'Never mind. Anyway, are there any more instructions on the page?'

Harry checked again: 'No, not yet. So either our treasure is at the white tree or the next instruction will only show up once we are there.'

'Most likely the last.' Daphne agreed, 'Too bad, otherwise we could have tried to find a shortcut. It doesn't look like we are following a road anyway.'

Harry nodded in agreement before he asked: 'Ready to go then?'

'No, wait. I brought something else.' Daphne replied before pulling a small item out of her pocket. She put it on the ground and whispered an engorgio spell. It grew into a circular box of about ten inches. She took of the lid and planted one of her hands into it. Then she raised it for inspection and Harry noticed that her skin had turned black. She smiled and said: 'Magical body paint, it is easily removed with an evanesco spell.'

'Nice one!' Harry grinned, and he watched how Daphne painted her hands and face black. Eventually she looked up at him and asked: 'All done?'

'You missed a little part above your cheek.' Harry replied after a careful inspection.

Daphne shrugged: 'You do it then.' And handed him the box. He put one of his fingers into the paint and carefully painted the last part of Daphne's face. Then he quickly started to do his own hands and face. Soon enough Daphne was finishing the last few details on his face before she reduced her box to its original size again and stood up. 'Right, let's go.'

Harry looked at the forest and said: 'Our best bet is most likely to stay low, between the undergrowth. It will take us a lot longer, but I think avoiding attention is a good thing.'

'Yes, with six hunting adults and everybody death set to get one of those prizes you are probably right. I'll follow your lead then.' Daphne agreed.

Harry nodded and leapt out of the circle towards the first cover. He led them on a slow but steady walk. Or crawl at least, since they did long runs on their knees and elbows. Every now and then he checked his compass again. The first time they heard anything he quickly stopped moving. Daphne crawled up next to him and softly whispered: 'What?'

He nodded to her left and whispered back: 'I heard something over there.'

Both of them pointed their wand in the right direction and as soon as Lee Jordan and Natalie Macdonald left their cover and ran towards another tree two stunners caught them. Daphne and Harry smiled at each other before enervating their victims. Both Lee and Natalie looked around in wonder, but apparently they still did not see Daphne and Harry. Eventually Lee reluctantly shot some red sparks into the air. Harry and Daphne waited for Alice Longbottom to pick them up and portkey everybody away before they continued their own slow crawl.

Eventually they did reach the white tree with the black cross. And after finding a nice hiding spot behind a few thorny bushes Harry pulled their parchment out of the bag again. He whispered: 'Follow the largest branch of the white tree for seven hundred feet.'

'Largest branch.' Daphne whispered while looking at the tree. Then she added: 'The lowest one, so that way.'

Harry could only agree, and this time Daphne led the way. She gazed back every few seconds to see if they were still on the right way. Meanwhile Harry used his compass to check their direction. He was quite sure that they would not be able to see the tree all seven hundred feet. After a while Daphne stopped moving behind a large oak tree. Harry moved up next to her and immediately noted the problem. A small river was blocking their path. It was only three feet wide, and could easily be jumped. But it was in the middle of a broad gully.

The two of them had another war council. Daphne started: 'We can easily cross it, but I would be surprised if none of the adults is watching the river.'

'Good point.' Harry agreed, 'But we have to cross it somehow.'

'Obviously.' Daphne said, 'But how? I guess we can simply take a run and hope we get lucky? I mean, we are camouflaged and as long as no one is waiting just in front of us he will have a hard time hitting us.'

'Maybe.' Harry agreed, while looking around for a better option. Eventually his eyes settled on two large trees that grew on either side of the gully. Their crowns almost touched each other right above it. He studied them for a few seconds before asking Daphne: 'What about those trees? Maybe we can climb through them?'

She looked doubtful: 'Looks unlikely to me. But I guess we can check it out.'

Harry started to move but suddenly Daphne pulled him back. He looked at her and she said: 'I saw some movement. Maybe sixty feet ahead.'

He stared into the darkness. Sixty feet ahead would be just on the other side of the tree. They patiently waited and eventually two figured bursted out of the undergrowth and made a run towards the river. Before they even reached the gully two stunners shot out of the tree that Harry had wanted to climb and took both of the runners out.

While the two were enervated again Harry softly said: 'Glad we didn't make that run. Whoever is in that tree is perfectly positioned, and obviously a sure shot as well.'

'Climbing the tree is also not going to work.' Daphne added, rather unnecessary.

'No.' Harry replied softly. Then after a few seconds he suggested: 'I think our best bet is to stun the person in the tree. That would give us five minutes immunity, and it's unlikely that two of the adults are guarding the same area.'

'Could work.' Daphne agreed, 'But how? Our opponent has a clear advantage.'

Harry nodded in agreement and after a while he said: 'Best I can think of is that one of us get as close as possible to that tree, then the other one distracts him and as soon as he shows himself we stun him. Or, the one hidden close to him stuns him.'

Daphne looked doubtful again, but eventually she shook her head: 'I can't think of anyone else. So, where are you going to hide and how do I know when I can start my run?'

'I didn't say that I should be the one hiding.' Harry protested.

'No, but you are by far the better shot. And we will only have one chance.' Daphne calmly replied. 'Beside that, it is only a stunner and I'm a tough girl. No need for Gryffindor gallantry.'

'Alright then. It does make me wonder how to solve a problem like this in real life. But for now we should be okay.' Harry agreed, then he pointed to a small bush at the other side of tree and said: 'I'll try to get to that bush over there. That way his attention will be focused away from me.'

'Sounds good.' Daphne said, 'So how do I know when you're ready for me?'

'Ehm. Good question.' Harry admitted, he needed to think of some signal that Daphne would understand but would not alert the tree guardian. Eventually he said: 'I'll do a small lumos on the side of the bush that can't be seen from the tree. It will only last a second though, think that will be enough?'

'Still a bit risky, but sure. I'll wait ten seconds after the lumos and make a mad run for it.' Daphne agreed.

'Right. See you in a bit then.' Harry replied before fading back into the forest and making a quick but stealthy semi-circle around the guarded tree. Halfway there he thought he saw a red flash out of the corner of his eye, he could only hope that Daphne wasn't in trouble. Right now he really missed his magical mirror. He should make sure Daphne got one of those as well sometime.

Eventually he reached the bush, which was even closer to the tree than he had guessed. Still, from twenty feet away he could not see anyone hiding in it. After a short while he pushed his wand behind his back, made sure it was protected as much as possible from the tree's line of sight and whispered a soft lumos, almost immediately followed by a nox. He pointed his wand at the tree and slowly counted to ten.

Perfectly on time Daphne ran out of cover and started to leap around in a crazy run. Seconds later Harry spotted some movement in the tree and two stunners flew towards Daphne only a second before he whispered the word stupefy three times in a row. There were a few soft cracks when small branches broke and a loud thud when a body crashed into the ground below the tree. Harry winced, he had not really thought about that. He saw Daphne still sprinting towards the gully and quickly ran to the tree.

Once there he found out that he had stunned Sirius and he quickly enervated the marauder. The man looked confused for a few seconds and then grinned at Harry: 'Nicely done pup. Sacrificing your lady huh?'

'You didn't even hit her.' Harry grinned in reply.

Sirius only snorted: 'Whatever, now get moving before anyone else sees you. And don't expect me to fall for that trick again.'

He didn't need to be told twice and quickly ran through the gully. On the other side he looked around until he saw a small flash of light. He ran towards it and dived into cover next to Daphne once again. 'You alright?' He whispered.

'Yeah, fine. What about that guy who fell from the tree?' Daphne asked.

'Sirius was alright, same as ever.' Harry replied.

'Ah.' Daphne nodded, 'He took out another duo though while you were moving around. Padma and Tracey.'

'Hmm… If all of the adults are doing that well there won't be many points.' Harry replied before looking at his compass. He was still stabilizing it when Daphne said: 'It's that way.'

He followed her finger and looked back to the other side of the gully. There was no sign of the white tree anymore and he asked: 'How do you know that?'

'I memorized new points every fifty feet or so. The tree over there is pointing in the right direction now.' Daphne explained.

'Nice one. Let's get moving again then.'

They had two more changes of direction before they ran into the team of Ginny and Fred Weasley. Harry immediately stunned Fred but was stunned himself by Ginny. Apparently Daphne won the duel between the two witches, and he was enervated before the two redheads. Again they left a duo shooting red sparks into the air behind them. After that, they barely avoided Remus who was simply running around the forest, making a lot of noise but trusting on his werewolf senses to spot any students. After he was gone Daphne wondered why they had not simply stunned him, and Harry explained that Remus was rather resistant to that kind of spells. He guessed an expelliarmus might have worked though. Still, it would hardly have been worth the risk since Remus was running rather fast. Stupid werewolf stamina.

Eventually they reached the end of their instructions and found a small but empty jewelry box. For a while they discussed if they were too late, but eventually they decided that the box itself was most likely the treasure. So Daphne said: 'That means we have to hide for thirty minutes. I guess we can climb into a tree or something?'

Harry had been studying a line of thick bushes, almost a hedge, for a while though and he replied: 'It will be difficult to find a tree that's big enough to hide us both. And we have to stay together since we have only one portkey. Maybe we could crawl below those bushes?'

Once again Daphne showed a doubtful look at one of his plans, but soon enough she agreed that it was worth a try and they moved towards it. Once there Daphne said: 'You can guard me while I try to find a spot, alright?'

Harry nodded and watched how Daphne dropped flat on her belly and slowly crawled below the bushes. He was a bit too distracted by looking at Daphne crawling to be much of a guard, but they were lucky and nobody showed up. Eventually Daphne's feet also disappeared below the leaves and after a while she whisper-shouted: 'Harry, get in here, I think this is a great spot.'

Harry dropped down and quickly crawled forward, he was of course very vulnerable right now. With only his legs sticking out of the green. But again luck was with them and soon enough he crawled next to Daphne, who had found a sort of cave-like open spot below the hedge. It was barely big enough to fit both of them, but they crawled against each other and simply waited in silence. Both of them had a hand on the jewelry box.

Eventually the portkey activated and pulled them away. They literally arrived on Lily's feet. She smiled at them and asked: 'What on earth were you two doing?'

They quickly shuffled away from each other before standing up and Harry replied: 'Hiding below some bushes while waiting for the portkey to activate.'

'Right.' Lily agreed, she wasn't as bad with the teasing as his father and Sirius. 'Nice camouflage by the way.'

Harry nodded. It was also useful to hide a blush, not that anything had really happened between them. But he still felt his face heating up somehow. His mother continued: 'You are only the third duo to return one of the treasures. And out of those three the only one who did not lose any points, so you are doing great. Time is not even halfway done, so I take it you want to go and try for another?'

They looked at each other and nodded at the same time. Lily did not reply but simply handed them another piece of rope and a bag. Seconds later they found themselves in the middle of a light blue circle again. During the remainder of the night they managed to return one more treasure. Although there second run started badly when James ran into them just while they were dispatching another duo. Their third run went quite smoothly though, and they even scored two extra points when they stole the treasure of Justin and Hannah. When they returned their second treasure there were only thirty minutes to go. So they decided to wait and see how far their nine points would bring them.

Eventually it turned out that they had reached a second spot. Ron and Hermione got first place, with eleven points. And Alicia Spinnet and Rose Zeller, a first year Hufflepuff, and their eight points finished third.

Ron barely had the courtesy to ask Hermione if she also wanted the broom. As soon as she shook his head he jumped forward and clutched the broom to him, looking like he couldn't believe him. Hermione took a lot longer but finally picked the radio.

Next Harry and Daphne walked forwards. Harry immediately drifted to the side with the two warhammer armies. He was somewhat surprised when Daphne followed him and asked: 'Which of the two armies do you prefer?'

He looked up: 'Not sure, both have some cool units. Why?'

Daphne shrugged: 'I figured I'd pick the other army if you want to show me the game sometime. It looked nice when I saw you and Ron playing two days ago. But I didn't really get it.'

Harry smiled: 'Of course I show you the game. It sounds like fun.' He hesitated: 'So far we found the human army easiest to play, so maybe you should pick the knights. Although I think it's another kind of human army than the one we played.'

She shrugged again: 'Fine with me, I liked them anyway. Especially that small group of pegasus riders.'

Harry nodded, he had thought the same. But the other army had lizardmen mounted upon dinosaur like creatures. So he was not going to complain.

— Two days later —

The majority of the students had returned to their homes, and only the small group that was invited for the inner circle remained. Although so far none of them really knew why they were asked to stay behind. Sadly enough the armourer had only enough material for twelve additional basilisk hide suits. And so they had to remove one of the thirteen names on their list. Eventually they had decided not to invite Padma Patil. Partly because they had more than enough brainpower already, and partly because they were still unsure if she could keep things hidden from her sister the gossip queen.

All together they had invited six of the other Gryffindors, including four Weasley's. And two from each of the other houses. For a total of sixteen inner circle members. Of course, none of them had yet accepted the invitation since they still did not really know what was going on.

They gathered in a loose semi-circle around James, Lily, Sirius, Alice, Frank and Remus. Harry was seated between Daphne and the Weasley twins. It was James who started the meeting: 'Most of you are wondering why your parents told you that you could stay a bit longer after summer camp. To explain the reason I'll have to tell you a small bit of history. Years ago, a prophecy was made. It told that Voldemort would be stopped by child born at the end of July to parents who had defied him three times already. There is a bit more to the prophecy, but since this is the only part that Voldemort already knows about, I will not tell you about the rest. It is not really important anyway. What is important is that Voldemort quickly realized that the prophecy was about either Harry or Neville.'

There were some excited murmurs until Tracey said: 'So that is how you knew that Voldemort was coming after you? I was wondering about it when I read the first _Daily Herald.'_

'Exactly.' James nodded.

Frank took over: 'Longbottom manor was also hidden behind a fidelius charm during those days. However, a week before Halloween James got the brilliant idea of visiting a real seer and ask him about the prophecy. He offered us a lot of extra information, once again I'm afraid we can't tell you about it. But the six of us immediately started preparing some things.'

Now Sirius went on: 'We have been training and researching for years. And I think we are six of the best fighters in all of Britain by now. More importantly, we started to give Harry, Neville, Hermione and Susan some extra training long before Hogwarts. And we intensified that over the years.'

'Why Hermione and Susan?' Justin wanted to know.

'We ran into Hermione when she and Harry attended the same ground school.' James replied, which was technically true of course. It was pure luck that nobody asked why Harry was sent to that specific school. 'And since Sirius is pretty much my brother and involved in this whole mess it only made sense to invite Susan as well.'

'We actually approached some of your parents years ago to ask if you could join.' Lily replied, 'Eventually only Ron and Ginny here joined us once for a paintball match.' 'And they didn't stop talking about it all summer.' Fred interrupted her. Ginny blushed at that, but Ron simply grinned. He was obviously still in seventh heaven after winning his new broomstick. Lily simply continued: 'We were happy to find out that by now all of your parents were more open to the idea of extra training. Partly because of the rumours around Voldemort's return and the escaped death eaters and partly because of the positive experiences of earlier summer camps I think.'

Again James took over: 'Last year, we told our kids that we would drastically improve their training during their fourth year. We also asked them to make a list of the most valuable DA members. The twelve of you made that list.'

There were some excited expressions at this, but most of the students seemed to wonder why on earth they made the list. Only Hannah Abbot actually asked that question though. And Alice was the one to answer: 'If I remember correctly they told us that you are a decent fighter and have a great talent for healing spells.' Hannah reluctantly nodded and Alice continued: 'They had positive things to say about all of you. And that is why we are going to invite all of you to join today. Of course, if any of you refuses the invitation there will be no hard feelings.'

'Why would we refuse?' Fred wanted to know, and most people seemed to agree with him.

Remus calmly replied: 'Several reasons actually. First, if you join this group it will take a lot of time. We are thinking about eight to ten hours a week at least. Maybe more sometimes. It will be very tough to combine this with schoolwork, quidditch and other activities.' Fred nodded but did not really look convinced and Remus continued: 'And second, we are forming this group because we are afraid that Voldemort will try to attack Hogwarts eventually. We are expecting this group to be at the forefront of the defence if that happens. So, all together it will be dangerous and time consuming.'

'Remind me that we never hire you as a sales person.' Fred dryly replied, Remus only chuckled.

A few seats to his right Justin asked: 'I take it this group will prepare us for that fight though?'

'Of course.' Remus nodded.

Justin looked thoughtful: 'If Voldemort ever attacks Hogwarts there is no way that I will not fight him. So the way I see it the only drawback of joining this group is that it will take some time. But most likely we will learn a lot of useful things. I'm in!'

Next to him Hannah nodded fervently and on his other side Tracey said: 'Me too. Every excuse to be out of the Slytherin common room is a good one for me. Although I have to admit that the lower years are nice most of the time. And as Justin says, there is no way that I will leave those four alone if Voldemort ever tries to hurt them anyway.'

There were a lot of agreeing murmurs at this. And after a while Lily said: 'Good, let's go name by name. Simply tell us if you want to join this group. And as we said before, there will be no hard feelings if you don't want to. And you will still be welcome in the DA and at the summer camps.'

Harry wasn't really surprised when everybody did want to join. Just like Tracey said he would never step away from his friends if they were in danger, so it only made sense to train a bit more. Most people immediately agreed. Only Katie Bell and Terry Boot took a few minutes to think when their names were called.

After the last name was called Lily simply rolled up her list and walked away. There were some confused looks at this, but James simply started to talk again: 'Great to have you all with us. This group is supposed to remain secret, which is why all of you were invited for the occlumency sessions during the last six months. In the next few days we are going to test your shields and if necessary work on improving them. Beside that, we will show you some physical exercises which you can do during the summer. A strong and healthy body is almost as important as your magical qualities during a duel. Beside that, it will help you in quidditch or on the dating scene as well.'

Several people chuckled at this and Sirius took over: 'However, so far we have only talked about the bad things of our new group. Like the dangerous mission that we train for and the amount of time it would take. There are also some benefits. The first, and possibly smallest benefit, is that we are going to pay you. Not very much, only two galleons a week. But we figured it was only fair since we are going to claim a large part of your free time.'

Again there were some cheerful reactions. And Harry remembered some complaints about how it was impossible to earn any money while secluded in Hogwarts. Although the Weasley twins seemed to have found their way around that little problem before. Sirius continued: 'The next benefit is just returning.'

Sure enough Lily was walking back towards them, all dressed up in dark green scaly armour which covered her from neck to toe and clung tightly to her body. Next to Harry Fred leaned over to him and whispered: 'Would you feel uncomfortable if I told you your mum looks hot?'

'Definitely.' Harry simply agreed.

Fred shrugged: 'She does anyway.'

Harry just ignored Fred and studied the armour. Its dark green scales seemed to absorb the light somehow, and Harry thought those suits would have been great a few nights ago. There were small black stripes around the joints and the waist, but beside that there were only green overlapping scales. Harry was somewhat surprised by how small the individual scales were, he had not really studied the basilisk in detail last year. But he had somehow expected bigger scales. Although he would never consider his own mother as 'hot' he had to admit that the armour looked great.

After a while Lily explained: 'This armour is made from the scales of the basilisk that terrorized Hogwarts last year. It will offer me, and you, since all of you will get one as well, a lot of protection against basic curses and hexes, although the three unforgivable curses will go straight through it. The small black stripes that you see are actually cockatrice skin. The cockatrice is related to the basilisk, but it's skin is a bit less tough and much more flexible. Maybe a demonstration will work best…' She looked at the group of students and asked: 'Terry? Can you fire a stunner at me?'

Terry stood up and reluctantly fired a weak stunner into Lily's abdomen. Absolutely nothing happened and Lily smiled at some of the surprised expressions. 'See? Of course, a very strong stunner would still go through the armour, or at least it would make me dizzy. So don't think you are invincible while wearing this. Strong blasting spells or bonebreakers do still hurt for example, although no bones will be broken. And the armour does not protect against the heat of fire, although it should help you avoid burns.'

'There are many, many creative ways in which to disable or kill someone who is wearing armour like this. And your head is still unprotected.' Frank seriously added, 'So stay careful when you wear it. But it is still useful enough to protect you from minor hexes and flying debris for example.'

'Beside that, it looks cool.' Sirius said while pulling a tape measure out of his pocket. With a flick of his wand he sent it to Harry and immediately the thing wrapped around his torso and started to move all around his body. Meanwhile Sirius continued: 'The tape measure will record your sizes and we will send them to France. Our armourer is going to work on your armours, since you are still growing they will probably have to be altered once a year or so. They have some flexibility, but not enough for a real growth spurt. I will try to bring the armours to Hogwarts, so you should simply visit my office during the first week to receive your own. It is possible not all of them will be ready at the start of term though. However, part of the extra training you will receive next year will be about wearing this armour. It is not really heavy or cumbersome, but it still takes some getting used to.'

Lily chuckled and showed one of her basilisk-clad hands: 'For example, don't slap your forehead while wearing those. Right, Sirius?'

'For example.' Sirius coolly agreed. Meanwhile the tape measure flew away from Harry to Fred. 'Beside that, we will focus on both your magical and physical power levels. So be prepared for a tough year.'

James had pulled a box out of nowhere and now said: 'There is one other item that we are going to give to all of you today. Fred, George, you want to do the honours?'

Fred and George immediately stood up, the tape measure quickly followed Fred, but he simply ignored it. They pulled a few long pieces of red cloth out of the box and wrapped them around themselves. Fred started talking: 'This are our new shield cloaks.'

'We thought it would be a bit of a laugh, let your friends hex you and simply ignore it.' George continued.

'But James and Sirius immediately asked us to make a few more for this group.' Fred took over again.

'I'm not sure why, considering that basilisk hide armour is a lot stronger than our shield cloaks.' George concluded.

James took over again while he was using his wand to distribute the other cloaks: 'The main reason is that you never have enough protection, especially on your back. And beside that, we ordered some fancy looking cloaks from Madam Malkin's and asked them to turn those into shield cloaks. That way, you can wear this cloak at formal occasions. While a full set of basilisk hide armour would be awkward.'

'They also are size-adjusting, water- and dirt repelling and have inbuilt temperature control.' Alice added, 'So they are quite nice to wear when you go outside. Also, it colour can be changed into black so it works with your Hogwarts uniform. Or to whatever colour you need while sneaking around. But in full sized battles we want you to change it back to red, that way we will make sure none of us looks like a death eater.'

By now most of the students had pulled their new cloaks around them, most of them still seemed a bit shocked by the idea that they would all receive free basilisk armour. James apparently realized this as well and he concluded: 'For now, we are done here. As soon as the tape measure is finished with all of you at least. Then you will have two free hours to spend any way you like and after that we will start working on occlumency and physical training for the next few days. Oh, you will also receive some magical mirrors and instructions about how to use them.'

_A/N: Pfew, shortest update ever is directly followed by the longest update ever. I think at least, didn't check it;) Somehow words kept streaming out of my fingers while describing the hide and seek game. And I promised Blue Luver5000 that the basilisk suits would be introduced in this chapter;) So, there you have a long chapter… Next one will be about the quidditch world cup._

_About the two galleons a week payment, does anyone have an idea if that's reasonable? I tried to find out some kind of galleon converter, but couldn't really find one. So at first I went with five galleons, but then I was browsing through the goblet of fire and noticed that Fred and George's entire 'capital' in their sixth year was about thirty-seven galleons. So five galleons a week seemed a little steep. Not that it really matters anyway, but it made me wonder about the galleon :P_


	52. The quidditch worldcup

**The quidditch world cup**

Justin Finch-Fletchley was the only one of the group to go home one day before the world cup final. All others were heading to the world cup. Some of their families were already waiting there, while others would stay the night at the Potter tent and find their families the next day. The students were accompanied by James, Lily, Frank, Alice, Sirius, Amelia, Remus, Tonks and Jack and Edna. Hermione's parents were very excited about attending a big magical event like this, while most other adults and students were simply excited about a quidditch world cup final.

During earlier championships they had sometimes watched world cup matches in their pensieve, memories of the matches were usually for sale after a day or two. Or they had listened to the wireless. But this year they had been too busy with summer camp. This was most likely a good thing, since the British teams hadn't performed too well. Especially England's 390 to 10 loss against Transylvania had been depressing enough to read about, let alone watch it.

It was a bit of a shame that there was no British team in the final now that the world cup was actually on the island. But at least their Irish neighbours had made it. They would play against Bulgaria. According to the _Daily Prophet_ the Bulgarian team was all about their seeker, Victor Krum. The _Daily Herald_ came with a much longer article about the two finalists and actually described all fourteen starting players of the two teams. And while they mentioned that the other Bulgarian players were quite good they also agreed that Krum was the one to watch for. Especially since the Irish chasers and beaters were considered the best of the world. His father had advised Harry to play special attention to Krum though, after all there were not that many opportunities to see such a great seeker in action, and he might learn a thing or two.

However, it was only minutes after dawn when the large group gathered around their portkey, a large pink hula hoop. It was an official portkey, provided by the ministry and had been quite expensive since they needed a big one for nine adults and fifteen students. Remus was counting down, but Harry still was surprised when the portkey activated. Somehow, it seemed like they went through three corkscrews while travelling and he needed a lot of effort to remain standing when he arrived. Around him more than half of the group tumbled down. Mostly students, but Hermione's parents had also failed to keep their balance. Harry guessed they were not really used to portkey travel. Tonks had also tripped, but that wasn't anything special.

He turned to Daphne, who had also tripped and was lying on her back. For a moment he wondered if he should ask her if she had fallen, but he decided to just offer her a hand. Apparently, she had noticed his thoughts and while she grabbed his hand she said: 'Yeah, yeah, I attacked the ground.'

Harry smiled while he pulled her up: 'I didn't say anything.'

'I know. Thanks.' She replied while putting her hands into her lower back and stretched. 'Stupid portkey, the one to Germany was a lot smoother.'

Alice turned up next to her: 'Yes, I'm not sure what kind of fool made this one. But never mind that, are you alright or do you need some healing?'

'No, I'm fine. Thanks.' Daphne replied. Alice just smiled and moved on while James started to wave everybody away from their arrival spot. A grumpy looking wizard, who for some unknown reason was wearing a tweed suit combined with galoshes, was telling him that the next party was due in three minutes. Another wizard, who looked even more foolish in a kilt and a poncho, threw their hula hoop in a large rubbish bin filled with all kind of random items.

As soon as everybody was away from the arrival pad James gathered them in a loose circle around him and started to explain: 'Okay everybody, listen up. We're going to stay together while we walk to our camping spot. Once there, some of the adults will go explore the camp site. You are free to join them or stay at the tent and wait for your own parents. I know that all of you are old and responsible enough to explore on your own, but I'm asking you to stay. What you have to remember is that your parents show us a lot of faith by letting you come to summer camp, and if we can't tell them where you are when they come to collect you that will make a bad impression. We wouldn't want to ruin our chances for next year, right?'

Several people nodded and James continued: 'One other thing. Officially seen, we are supposed to hide our identity from the muggle camp keepers.'

A few spots to Harry's left Edna snorted and loudly asked: 'Didn't anyone tell that to those two over there? I mean, a poncho and a kilt?'

James grinned and waved to the camp site where a four stories high tent with three separate balconies stood between several tents with full front gardens and said: 'Yeah, wizards are hopeless. But just make sure not to something too drastic, the owner of that big tent is possible some famous foreign dignitary. The ministry will be a lot less patient with British teenagers who blow up half the camp. Yes, Fred and George, that means you.'

Both twins looked completely innocent and carefree at that. Harry had to admit that they were quite good at it, he almost believed them. James concluded: 'It's about a fifteen minute walk. Be sure to stay together.'

Harry was walking between Susan and Neville and they were happily talking and looking around. They had a few laughs when they encountered a large group of Peruvian tents. Their nation had lost the semi-final against Ireland, and it seemed that their fans were still a bit drunk. Peruvian songs didn't sound that good while the singers were drunk.

Every now and then Harry looked around the group. He noticed that Daphne and Tracey were helping Hermione to provide a running commentary for her parents. Both of them seemed to be very intrigued by anything magical, whether it was another extraordinary tent or two small girls flying around on toy broomsticks. They were followed by a running ministry wizard who was complaining about their parents having a lie-in. Harry wondered why he even tried, no sane muggle would fail to notice the magical tents and the wizards and witches.

They passed a group of African women who were loudly debating something in a language that did not make any sense to Harry. Frank and Alice barely avoided them, which looked odd to Harry. He looked around again and suddenly noted that the adults had spread around in a rough circle around the group. James and Lily were at the front of the group, Frank and Alice to the right, Sirius and Amelia to the left and Remus and Tonks at the back. They had done it rather smoothly and pretend that it happened coincidentally, but they were forming a protective shield. Harry was sure all of them would have their wands ready in a second if something happened. For a moment he wondered if there was any reason for such preparations, but he guessed it was just a normal precaution for his parents in an environment like this.

Meanwhile Susan and Neville were talking about a huge red circular tent with two functioning chimneys. Harry zoned back in to the conservation when Neville said: 'I mean, I am okay with adding chimneys to a tent. I mean, why not. But why on earth would you use them right now? It's warm enough as it is, right?'

Susan shrugged: 'I guess a fire could be useful at night. But right now it seems a bit over the top. Maybe the owner of the tent is from a much warmer country?'

'Or maybe they want to use their floo?' Harry suggested.

Neville frowned: 'Is that even possible in a tent? I mean, you need a connection I think?'

Just before Harry had to admit that he had no idea Jack leaned towards them and asked: 'What's a floo?'

Hermione immediately started a long winded explanation about the floo system and Jack kept back again. The three of them just looked at each other and grinned. Harry wondered how he would have reacted to some of the things he saw here if he had not grown up in the wizarding world. Of course, Hermione's parents had been to Lionfire Hall and to Susan's and Neville's homes, but it was not really the same.

Eventually they reached their camp site. And Lily quickly paid the owner and received a map of the area. When she returned to the group she shook her head and said: 'The poor man had been obliviated several times at least. I could see it in his eyes.'

'Obli-what?' Jack asked.

'His memory has been tampered with.' Lily shortly replied.

'Oh.' Jack frowned, 'Isn't that dangerous?'

Lily hesitated and looked to Amelia, who immediately said: 'Not really when it is used for recent memories. Although, after a week like this he might have a slight headache for a few days. And most likely he will wonder how his bank account has suddenly grown so much.'

'There are worse things to wonder about.' Jack grinned.

'Yes.' Lily agreed before she pointed, 'Anyway, our spot is over there. Near that small group of trees.'

They quickly walked the last part and found a simple wooden sign before a large empty area that said 'Potter and company'.

James looked around while he put his backpack on the ground and commented: 'Seems we have some German neighbours. Well, never mind that.' He opened his backpack and rummaged through it for a few seconds before pulling out four pieces of cloth. For a few seconds he studied them, then handed one of them to Sirius, Remus and Alice. He kept the largest one for himself and stood up again. The four of them all found a nice spot, threw the piece of cloth on the ground and waited for Lily to call: 'No muggles are watching us.'

With four quick wand movements the four pieces of cloth transformed into four colourful tents. Harry frowned, each of them looked only big enough to house maybe three or four people. He had somehow expected some kind of large castle-like tent to house them all. However, James just looked around and said: 'Sirius' tent has the food, let's go there for breakfast.'

Sirius and Amelia had already entered their tent and James quickly followed. There were some confused looks among the others, but everybody started to move towards the tent. When Harry entered he arrived in a huge rectangular room which was easily five times bigger than the tent had appeared to be. There was a large round table in the middle which was already being filled with various kinds of breakfast food by Sirius and Amelia. Apparently the house elves had prepared quite a feast. At the end of the room were four other doors, but Harry didn't investigate. Instead of that he took a chair between Daphne and Neville.

Everybody was quite hungry, and breakfast was a rather silent affair. There was some noise when Hannah's dad arrived, but he was simply invited to join and he took a seat next to his daughter. The same happened when first Tracey's mother and a few minutes later both of Katie's parents showed up. While most others remained at the table and kept on chatting with their friends those three families left when they were done. Although Tracey made a quick stop at Daphne's chair: 'Mum is asking if you want to join us or if you stay here.'

Daphne immediately replied: 'I promised my father to wait for him here, so I think I better stay here.'

Tracey shrugged: 'I already told her you would say that, but she wanted me to ask anyway.'

Daphne smiled: 'Tell her thanks.'

'I will. Good luck Daph. Oh, and have fun at the match everybody!' Tracey replied before walking back to her mother.

A few minutes later Lily stood up and called: 'Good, now that everyone is finished with their breakfasts I have a few questions. Can everybody whose family should already be at the camp site somewhere raise their hand?'

Three people raised their hands; Alicia Spinnet, Luna Lovegood and Terry Boot. Lily nodded and asked: 'Did you agree on a time with your parents? Terry?'

Terry nodded, 'My father will be here in…' He looked at his watch, 'about an hour.'

'My parents will show up around that time as well.' Alicia added.

Lily turned to Luna, who just smiled and cheerfully said: 'I'm not sure when daddy will show up. We didn't agree on a time, and there are quite a lot distractions on a camping site like this.'

For a few seconds Lily looked surprised at the idea that someone would not immediately go to their kid after not seeing her for more than a week. But then she just smiled and said: 'Well, you're welcome to stay as long as you want of course. That leaves only Daphne and the whole Weasley family I guess. Daphne?'

'My family will arrive late in the afternoon. I think they will come for me after they find their own camp site.' Daphne simply replied.

Fred was the one to answer for the Weasleys: 'Dad and our brothers will only arrive tomorrow.'

'Do you know what time?' Lily asked.

Fred hesitated, but George came to his aid: 'I think I overheard dad saying that he could sleep late now that he didn't have to make the portkey.'

'But then, to dad everything after seven counts as 'sleep late'.' Ginny cheerfully added.

Lily shook her head: 'Anyway, we'll see when he shows up then. For today, Jack and Edna want to see more of the area. And Sirius and Amelia are going to accompany them. You are of course welcome to join them if you want. If you want, or need, to stay here, we brought a lot of board games in our tent.'

Hermione, Susan, Fred, George and Ginny all decided to join the exploring group. All of the other DA members followed James and Lily to the Potter tent, which looked pretty much the same but was filled with several large rectangular tables instead of a big round one. To the left wall there was a huge cabinet filled with board games. However, before they walked into that direction Daphne asked Harry: 'Think you can show me that warhammer game Harry? Might be our last chance for a while.'

'Sure.' Harry enthusiastically replied, 'But that is quite a long two player game, maybe we should try and play something with all of us together at first?'

Alicia shrugged and said: 'I think Terry and I just play a bit of exploding snap or maybe gobstones until our parents show up. That is, if you are alright with that Terry?'

Terry shrugged uncomfortably. The boy was terribly shy and obviously not sure how to reply to the dark-skinned beauty. Eventually he managed a soft: 'Exploding snaps sounds fine.'

'Oh, I like that game! Can I join?' Luna hopefully asked.

'Of course you can.' Alicia smiled and Luna actually made a small pirouette. 'Anyone else wants to join us?'

Ron shook his head and Neville replied: 'I'm not really in the mood for snaps. I think I'll just watch the warhammer game. It's fun.'

'Oh, and you can help me!' Daphne immediately suggested.

Neville shrugged: 'Maybe. You should ask Ron though, he's much better than me.'

Before Harry could object Ron replied: 'No, I'm sorry, but I agreed to play chess against Remus. We didn't have our annual game yet.'

Nevile hesitated for a few seconds, then he said: 'Well, sorry Daphne, but then you are on your own. I want to see this.'

Daphne tried to look sad, but it didn't really work. And while the exploding snap players were joined by Alice all the others formed a small circle about Remus and Ron and their checkboard.

'Seems it's just the two of us then.' Harry smiled while walking to one of the empty tables.

'Just as well I guess.' Daphne replied and when Harry looked at her she clarified: 'This way nobody sees me making a fool of myself during my first game. Well, beside you of course.'

Harry chuckled: 'It's not like I'm very good at it yet. And anyway, as long as we have fun.'

They both pulled the small magical sacks that housed their prizes from the hide and seek game and started to empty them. It took a while to get all the miniatures out of their protected containers. Beside that they also found two books in each of their bags, one general rulebook and one book that focused on the specific army they won. That last book also included sample army lists, and they quickly agreed to play those instead of wasting time on making their own list. Although Daphne was somewhat disappointed that her pegasus riders were not on the list. A few minutes later Harry had added them to her list while adding a few more dinosaur riding lizards to his own. It would give Daphne a small lead in points, but he did not really care.

A few hours later Harry started to wonder why he had thought so. They played very slowly, because Daphne wanted to be sure she knew all her options at every move. But she was slowly grinding his lizard army into dust. The charges from her pegasus riders and normal cavalry were simply too much to handle for his poor lizards. During their second game Harry used the cover of some transfigured hills and forests while occasionally raining down arrows on Daphne's cavalry. Which made Daphne cry out: 'Astoria! Thanks for coming to save me!' When her sister suddenly turned up next to them. She looked a lot like Daphne, although her hair had a bit more curl into it while Daphne's hair was straight.

Cheerfully Astoria crushed her elder sister's hopes: 'Dad and mum are talking to Harry's parents, it might take a while.' Daphne groaned and Harry chuckled: 'You shouldn't complain, you won the first game.'

'But Daphne doesn't like losing.' Astoria clarified in the same cheerful tone.

'Ah, shush.' Daphne muttered while studying her army. Harry just grinned again, he wasn't sure if he had already won the game. But at least he lost a lot fewer units then Daphne so far. They played on for some thirty minutes while occasionally answering Astoria's questions before they were interrupted again, this time by Daphne's parents. Both of them also seemed interested in the game, but they took the time to introduce themselves as Alphard and Isla Greengrass. Both of them focused on the game, which was almost finished, but while Isla just seemed to enjoy watching her daughter play Alphard asked a few questions about the DA and its purposes, which Harry tried to answer without too much specific details. Somehow, Alphard seemed to like it.

When Daphne's last horses were trampled by Harry's largest dinosaur unit she threw her hands in the air and sighed: 'I give up. I want a rematch at Hogwarts sometime though.'

'I would like that.' Harry smiled. He wanted to add something, but realised that her parents were still there so he changed it to: 'I had a good time. And I hope you will enjoy the world cup.'

'Thanks, you too.' Daphne replied politely, than she chuckled: 'Like there is any doubt that a quidditch fanatic like you would enjoy the game.'

'Oh, you play quidditch Harry?' Isla wanted to know, and now that Harry wasn't distracted by the game anymore he noticed that Daphne looked a lot like her mother.

Harry nodded: 'I'm seeker for Gryffindor.'

'Nice.' Isla replied, and Alphard added: 'Play special attention to Krum then. Ever seen him fly?'

'No, not yet.' Harry admitted.

'He's phenomenal.' Alphard replied while shaking his head. 'Anyway, I'm afraid we should be going now. We agreed to have dinner with Barty Crouch.'

Harry nodded again before politely saying goodbye. Daphne shot him a last, almost regretful, smile before leaving the tent with her family.

— The next day —

After Daphne had left Harry had joined his other friends in a large game of exploding snap. They had kept playing until Luna's father finally showed up to get her. Harry couldn't say that he was surprised to learn that her father was even more eccentric than Luna on her worst. He seemed friendly enough though.

They had spent the evening around a campfire roasting marshmallows and sausages together with the Weasley's who were the only ones staying the night. Of course, Ron had almost single-handedly gone through the marshmallows, but most of the others preferred the sausages anyway. And it was not like Sirius had brought too few marshmallows. The only reason why Ron ate so much more marshmallows than Sirius was because Amelia actually stopped her husband after a while.

After a good but short sleep they had explored the camp sites a bit, meeting a lot of other Hogwarts students, including Oliver Wood, who had actually signed a contract with Puddlemere United's reserve team. After Harry mentioned to Wood that Puddlemere was his favourite team all his friends needed to pull him away from the suddenly excited quidditch fanatic. It looked like he wanted to immediately contact his manager to sign Harry immediately. A little further they found Seamus Finnegan and his mother who were surrounded by huge numbers of green-clad, cheering Irish fans. It was, as Susan said, almost as if they had already won the game.

Of course, they had to explore the Bulgarian camp site after that. But first they had to return to the Potter tent because Lily had learned the day before that Arthur Weasley would show up around noon. The three elder Weasley brothers had come as well. And Harry was quite glad when his parents led him and his friends away to the Bulgarian camp. Percy had been droning on and on about his new job as a trainee at Stephenson and Jones lawyers. He was happy for Percy that he found a job that he liked, but that didn't mean he wanted to know all about it.

The four of them forgot all about Percy when they were suddenly surrounded by a sea of posters of a very surly face with heavy black eyebrows. There were actually more of those posters than Bulgarian flags in the area. All together the area looked a lot less cheerful than the Irish camp site. Even the large group that was rhythmically shouting: 'KRUM! KRUM! KRUM!' sounded more threatening than cheerful.

All of them quickly decided to support the Irish and they all bought some small green items at the peddlers'. Like rosettes, dancing shamrock-hats and even a few Irish flags. Harry barely realized how much time had passed when a deep gong sounded and red and green lanterns lighted up to show the path to the stadium.

They first returned to their tents to pick up the others before the twelve of them made their way to the stadium. After that, it was a twenty minute walk filled with laughter and talking before they finally reached the stadium. Harry could only see a small part of the huge golden wall that surrounded the pitch, but was immediately awed by the size. He overheard Remus explaining to Hermione's parents: 'Over five hundred ministry workers have been busy with it all year. It seats over a hundred thousand. And if you were not carrying those ward stones the anti-muggle wards would have you running away by now.'

They climbed the purple stairs inside the stadium almost to the top. There were only two chairs to go when James finally led the group through a door. They entered a small box with fourteen chairs, just enough for all of them. They were almost exactly between the two sets of goals and close to the top of the stadium. Jack asked: 'Wouldn't we have a better view on the lower seats?'

'No.' James replied, 'You have to remember that this sport is played on brooms.' He turned around and pointed to another box: 'That's the top box, where the ministers and other notables will be seated… I wonder how the Weasley's managed to end up there?'

'They probably did something nice and got the tickets as a gift.' Sirius answered. 'They weren't available for sale, I tried.'

'Why would you want to sit next to the minister anyway?' James wanted to know, and Harry decided it was time to focus on the stadium again instead of on the discussion. It was huge! The Hogwarts' quidditch stands could fit more than twenty times into this. He could only imagine how awesome it would be to actually play in a stadium like this.

At the other side of the stadium was a huge blackboard which was depicting advertisements for now. He guessed the scores would show up on it later. And sure enough, it changed into 'BULGARIA: ZERO, IRELAND: ZERO' as soon as a voice shouted: 'Ladies and gentlemen... welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!'

Loud cheers greeted those words, and the commentator waited a few seconds until they died down a bit before he continued: 'And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce... the Bulgarian Team Mascots!'

'Wonder what they brought.' Remus commented while the right side of the stadium, a vast block of scarlet, roared its approval. A few seconds later he added: 'Uhoh, Veelas.' A few seats to his left James suddenly turned to Harry and Neville and called: 'Boys! Occlumency shields up!'

Harry was somewhat surprised, but obeyed his father anyway. Nowadays he had his defences up all the time, but on a basic level. Now he put all his defences into gear. He wondered what on earth was going to happen. All he could see was that about a hundred beautiful women streamed onto the pitch. They looked very nice, and Harry admired their fast-paced dance. But he wondered what it had to do with his occlumency shields. But then Hermione tapped him on his shoulder and pointed to another box were two young men had removed their shirts and were banging their fists against their chests. Looking around he saw other man doing equally stupid things, one of them even seemed to be thinking of diving out of his box, if the panicked look on the woman's face that was holding him back was anything to go by.

He shook his head in wonder while looking at the craziness. Meanwhile his father leaned over to him and said: 'Occlumency does not really work against a Veela's magic, especially not this when there are this many. But it forces you to concentrate on something else, with such a distance involved that should be enough. If you ever encounter one or more up close… Well, ask Remus for a defence sometime, I have no idea.'

Harry just nodded in return while the Veelas were led to the side of the pitch, accompanied by angry roars of people who didn't want the Veelas to go. Harry wondered how many people had just decided to support Bulgaria.

"And now," roared the commentator's voice, "kindly put your wands in the air ... for the Irish National Team Mascots!"

Next moment, what seemed to be a great green-and-gold comet had come zooming into the stadium. It did one circuit of the stadium, then split into two smaller comets, each hurtling towards goalposts. A rainbow arced suddenly across the pitch, connecting the two balls of light. The crowd "oooohed" and "aaaaahed", as though at a firework display.

Now the rainbow faded and the balls of light reunited and merged; they had formed a great shimmering shamrock, which rose up into the sky and began to soar over the stands. Something like golden rain seemed to be falling from it and to Harry's surprise suddenly golden coins rained down in their box. Harry was too busy looking at the shamrock, which seemed to consist out of a huge number of tiny bearded men with red waistcoats to even try and collect some gold coins. Beside that, he heard Remus explaining to the Grangers that the leprechaun gold would fade away in a few hours.

Again, he wondered how many people had just changed their support again. Judging by the reactions around them not many people knew about leprechaun gold. Harry actually noticed some small fights starting until cooler-headed people stopped them. Eventually the great shamrock dissolved, the leprechauns drifted down onto the pitch on the opposite side from the Veela, and settled themselves cross-legged to watch the match.

'And now ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome - the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team! I give you Dimitrov!' A scarlet-clad figure on a broomstick, moving so fast it was blurred, shot out onto the pitch from an entrance far below, to wild applause from the Bulgarian supporters.

'Ivanova!'

A second scarlet-robed player zoomed out.

'Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaaand - Krum!'

'Ah yes, their star player,' said James, intrigued. 'I wonder what he's like?'

Harry quickly focused on him as well. Viktor Krum was thin, dark and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows. He looked like an overgrown bird of prey. It was hard to believe he was only eighteen.

'And now, please greet - the Irish National Quidditch Team!' yelled the commentator. 'Presenting - Connolly! Ryan! Troy! Mullet! Moran! Quigley! Aaaaaand - Lynch!'

Seven green blurs swept onto the pitch. Harry guessed that Lynch was the Irish seeker. He was still planning to pay special attention to the seeker duel. Looking at the Irish team he noticed that they were all flying Firebolts.

'And here all the way from Egypt, our referee, acclaimed Chairwizard of the International Association of Quidditch, Hassan Mostafa!'

A small and skinny wizard, completely bald but with a large moustache, wearing robes of pure gold to match the stadium, strode out onto the pitch. A silver whistle was protruding from under the moustache, and he was carrying a large wooden crate under one arm, his broomstick under the other. The referee opened the box and for the briefest of moments Harry saw the golden snitch before it disappeared.

With a sharp blast on his whistle, Mostafa shot into the air and the game started.

'Theeeeeeeey're OFF!' screamed the commentator. 'And it's Mullet! Troy! Moran! Dimitrov! Back to Mullet! Troy! Levski! Moran!'

It was unbelievable. Harry had never seen quidditch being played like this. He guessed the pensieve matches of earlier world cup finals should have come close. But it was so much more impressive when actually sitting in a stadium. He totally forgot his idea to study the seekers because he was enthralled by the amazing team play of the Irish chasers. Everything went so fast that he almost missed Ireland's first goal, he did see the leprechauns reforming the large shamrock though.

The Irish players were clearly outclassing their Bulgarian opponents. And within ten minutes they had a thirty-zero lead. The game quickly became more brutal, and after a few well aimed bludgers from the Bulgarian beaters Ivanova scored the first goal for their team. The commentator kept shouting names until suddenly the two seekers went into a very steep dive. Harry was trying to find the snitch, but he barely dared to take his eyes of the two seeker. It was almost like they were dropping without a broom.

'They're going to crash!' Hermione shouted next to him.

She was half-right - at the very last second, Viktor Krum pulled out of the dive and spiralled off. Lynch, however, hit the ground with a dull thud that could be heard throughout the stadium. 'Ouch.' Neville muttered from his other side while Harry winced and a huge groan sounded from the Irish stands.

'It's time out! As trained medi-wizards hurry onto the pitch to examine Aidan Lynch!' The commentator explained.

James shook his head: 'A wronski feint in a world cup final. That Krum has nerves of steel.'

Harry nodded without commenting. Krum was now lazily circling the pitch looking around for the snitch while Lynch was being helped. He would of course not be allowed to capture it during time-out, but it was a huge advantage anyway. Maybe he should try it at Hogwarts sometime? Although it seemed a bit of an extreme stunt to pull during a school match. He somewhat wondered if he would receive more punishment from McGonagall or from his own mother if he ever tried it… Still, it looked cool.

As soon as the game started up again it seemed that Krum's move had one unwanted result though. The Irish chasers moved into an even faster pace. And after fifteen frantic minutes they increased their lead by ten goals. They were leading by a hundred and thirty points to ten when the referee awarded Ireland a penalty after a foul of the Bulgarian keeper. The leprechauns once again rose into the air and formed the words "HA HA HA" to loud cheers from the Irish fans.

However, the Veelas jumped to their feet as well and started to dance again. Again Harry raised his occlumency shield, he almost dropped them when he noticed the referee landing in front of the Veelas while flexing his arms. The commentators sounded highly amused when he said: 'Now we can't have that! Someone slap the referee!'

A medi-wizard came running down the pitch, his fingers into his own ears to block the Veela song, and kicked Mostafa hard on the shins. For a second the referee looked at him in wonder, but then he furiously turned back to the Veela and started to berate them. The commentator spoke up again: 'And unless I'm much mistaken. Mostafa is actually attempting to send off the Bulgarian Team Mascots. Now there's something we haven't seen before... oh, this could turn nasty...'

'Is that even possible?' Susan wanted to know, and all of them turned to James and Sirius who were the two who knew most useless facts about quidditch. Still, both of them just shrugged. It was Amelia who said: 'I hope he comes to his senses soon. This could cause an international incident.'

Harry didn't know about that, but he did notice that the Bulgarian Beaters, Volkov and Vulchanov, had landed either side of Mostafa, and began arguing furiously with him, gesticulating towards the leprechauns, who had now gleefully formed the words "HEE HEE HEE."

Mostafa was not impressed by the Bulgarians' arguments, however; he was jabbing his finger in the air, clearly telling team to get flying again, and when they refused, he gave two short blasts on his whistle.

'Two penalties?' James commented, 'That seems a bit unfair.'

'Obviously he is upset about his own actions.' Remus agreed.

The Irish scored both penalties without any problems. And play resumed again, even fiercer than before. Only a few minutes later one of the Bulgarian beaters caused another penalty for Ireland. The leprechauns seemed to think it was a good idea to form a huge hand that made a very rude gesture towards the Veelas.

Of course, the Veelas did not really agree. They charged down the pitch and started to hurl small balls of fire towards the leprechauns. Ministry wizards streamed onto the pitch to try and keep the two groups apart. Meanwhile the battle above the pitch was still going strong, and Harry found it difficult to decide what to look at. The quaffle was still changing hands with the speed of a bullet. And the Irish were still scoring more goals than the Bulgarians.

Suddenly one of the Irish beaters whacked a bludger towards Krum. Obviously the Bulgarian saw it too late, and he got it full in the face. Blood was streaming out of his nose, but the referee didn't call for a time-out. Most likely because one of the Veela had set his broom on fire. Harry searched for the Irish seeker and shouted: 'Lynch saw the snitch! Look at him go!' when the man suddenly went into a steep dive.

To his amazement Krum suddenly showed up just behind Lynch and was clearly trying to pass him while drops of blood trailed behind him. Harry did not even know how Krum could even see what he was doing. But the pair hurtled down to the ground again. And once again Hermione shouted: 'They are going to crash!'

And once again, she was half-right. Again Lynch crashed, this time he was immediately trampled by a host of angry Veela. But Krum pulled up just in time, avoided three Veela and somehow grabbed the snitch out of thin air. Harry shook his head in wonder at the amazing catch. It seemed most people had not even realized that Krum had captured the snitch, although the scoreboard already showed the final result. Harry felt somewhat disappointed when he noted that the Irish had still won the game with a ten point lead. Somehow, he felt that such a catch should have earned Krum's team the world cup.

They clapped and cheered for both teams during the award ceremonies and their throats actually hurt when they finally left the stadium and made their way back to their tents. Hermione asked why they could not just apparate or portkey back home, but Lily explained that there had been all kind of security measures around the stadium during the match. It would be easier to give the ministry a few hours to take those away instead of trying to force a way through them. Beside that, everybody was tired enough to get a good night of sleep in a tent. Of course, that little fact didn't stop them from discussing the match for almost two hours before Lily and Alice finally ordered everybody to their beds. Harry pretty much fell asleep the moment that his head touched the pillow, totally ignoring the still ongoing party outside.

— Three hours later —

He felt like he had barely felt asleep when his father shouted: 'Harry! Wake up now!'

'S'matter?' he said while waking up. Dimly, he could tell that something was wrong. The noises in the campsite had changed. The singing had stopped. He could hear screams, and the sound of people running. He slipped down from the bunk, and reached for his clothes, but his father, who had pulled on his jeans over his own pyjamas, said, 'No time, Harry - just grab a jacket and get outside - quickly!'

He quickly did so and followed his father outside. Where the Grangers and Remus and Tonks were just leaving their own tent. Sirius, Amelia, Susan and the Longbottoms had already formed a small line in front of their tents. They quickly joined and Lily asked: 'Any idea what's happening?'

'No clue.' Frank replied calmly before he pointed towards the screams. 'But something is heading more or less our way.'

Sure enough a large group of people was panicking and running towards them. Harry saw colourful flashes of spell fire behind them, and he heard some angry voices shouting. Suddenly a flash of strong green light illuminated the scene and they could all clearly see a host of dark cloaked, white masked, wizards marching towards them.

Remus cursed: 'Death eaters. Why would they show up now?'

Nobody replied, and Harry kept studying the group. Most of them had their wands pointing into the sky, but on each side several of them shot random curses into the mob. High above them, floating along in mid-air, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked wizards on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were marionettes operated by the invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air. Two of the figures were very small.

'Bah, the cowards got some hostages. Now everybody will hesitate to attack them to prevent the hostages from falling.' James said while suddenly a large part of the death eaters turned and jumped towards a large ornate castle-like tent with four levels and several turrets. James cursed and said: 'Frank, Lily, take care of those hostages. The others with me, and use stunners, there are too many eyes.'

'Including mine.' Amelia dryly added, and James only grinned to her.

'What about us dad?' Harry wanted to know, gesturing towards his friends as well. James frowned and exchanged a look with Lily. Eventually he said: 'Stay here with Frank, Lily and the Grangers. Keep your wands ready, but try not to attract attention to yourselves.'

Harry simply nodded in agreement. He somewhat wanted to join his father instead, but this was hardly the time to discuss that. Instead, he just watched how James ran away, followed by Sirius, Amelia, Alice, Remus and Tonks. Meanwhile part of the castle like tent burst into flames, and judging by the flashes of light a full battle was raging on its ground floor.

As soon as James and the others were in position they opened a huge bombardment of stunners towards the group below the hostages. Several shields flared up, but about ten of the death eaters crumpled within a minute. Only seconds later suddenly all of the death eaters in that group disappeared, including all but one of the unconscious shapes.

The group around James immediately charged to the castle like tent while Frank and Lily slowly lowered the four hostages back to the ground. They clearly wanted to join the fight at the large tent, but it was just as clear that they did not want to leave Harry and the others behind. Beside that, when the four hostages were finally save most of the fight seemed to be over. They waited for the last flashes to disappear before Lily said: 'Let's go to them and see if we can help.'

They were not even halfway to the tent when they heard a desperate voice from inside bellowing: 'A HEALER! I NEED A HEALER!'

It took Harry a second to realise that he had heard that voice earlier today. And less than a second later he realized that it was Alphard Greengrass' voice. Before his mother could even react he suddenly sprinted past her, desperate to see what had happened in that tent.

_A/N: And again, a nice spot to end before this chapter becomes unbearably long:D Sorry about the slow update, but RL was crazy this week. And beside that I needed a few tries to make this update work. _

_Something that did bother me while writing this chapter: I pretty much copied the description about the leprechauns from the book. But how on earth can Harry see that the tiny leprechauns settled themselves cross-legged down on the pitch while sitting in the top row of a 100,000 stadium himself? I mean, I want glasses (or lenses, like Harry has in this story;)) like that… I'm happy to see the ball during a football match in a large stadium ;)_


	53. Greengrass Manor

**Greengrass manor**

Harry ran past several adults to get to the source of that shout. His own heart almost stopped beating when he saw Alphard sitting on the ground with Daphne's head resting on his lap. Her face was almost as white as chalk and her short night gown was covered in too much blood. Behind Alphard his wife Isla had turned Astoria away from the scene and she was urgently talking to the younger girl. Before he could ask anything a hand grabbed his shoulder and unceremoniously pulled him away. He crashed to the floor but swallowed his protest when he saw that Alice was now kneeling next to Daphne, she was the best healer of his parents' group.

James crouched down next to him: 'Are you alright Harry?'

'Yeah, I'm fine.' He shortly replied, he did not really care right now. 'But Daphne?'

James shook his head: 'I don't know Harry. I'm sure Alice can help her. And Sirius, Amelia, Remus and Tonks are looking around for a professional healer.'

Harry just nodded, but he kept staring at Daphne. Alice was forcing some red potions through her throat before she started waving her wand over Daphne's body. She kept shaking her head though, which could not be a good sign. After a short while she asked Alphard: 'Do you know what caused this?'

The man desperately shook his head: 'No, there were too many curses flying. Can you please help her? She was absolutely brilliant during the fight.'

Again Harry nodded, of course she was. Daphne was one of the strongest fighters of the DA. It didn't really help right now though. After a few minutes Alice started to talk again: 'I healed most of her external wounds, but there is some internal damage that I can't work out. We need a real healer, and fast.'

'Can we transport her? The wards are down, so we could apparate or portkey to St. Mungo's.' James suggested.

Alice immediately shook her head again: 'No, I wouldn't risk it right now. If no healer shows up in the next five minutes or so it may be our only option though.' She kept waving her wand around in slow circles, although Harry wasn't sure if she was still casting spells or if it was just a tic. After a while she looked up and asked: 'Isla? Are you and Astoria alright?'

Isla only nodded, her reply was interrupted by a commotion at the entrance. Harry turned around and saw Sirius pushing random onlookers aside while pulling two sleepy looking men behind him. He was shouting: 'Healer coming through, make way! Make way!'

One of the men knelt down next to Daphne and started to wave his wand around in a very complicated pattern. Meanwhile Sirius explained: 'He's a Russian healer. I think I just caused a new cold war when I pulled him and his friend away from the other Russians, but I was in a hurry. Amelia is trying to calm things down.'

'Nono. No war.' The other Russian stammered.

Sirius nodded to him: 'Oh, and I brought him as an interpreter. The healer guy doesn't speak English.'

James just shook his head in wonder. Eventually he asked: 'Where are Remus and Tonks?'

'Tonks apparated to St. Mungo's. She said she was going to flash her badge around and recruit some healers. And Remus is still looking around.' Sirius explained, he wanted to add something else, but suddenly the healer started to talk in fast Russian. Harry couldn't understand a thing of it, but the man sounded worried.

They all looked at the other Russian who slowly tried to explain: 'He says… There is lot of damage… But inside. Hard to heal… He needs a second healer… If he heals just one spot he can't keep other spot good at the same time.'

'Can you do that Alice?' James asked.

Alice shook her head: 'I don't think so. How long do we have?' She asked the last question to the healer, who just looked confused. The other man translated Alice's question and then translated the answer: 'He says ten minutes. But longer it takes, longer girl will be sick.'

'Sick is fine, we can handle that.' Alhpard muttered, clearly just as relieved as Harry felt. Of course, they still needed a second healer, but ten minutes seemed like a lot of time with Tonks already at St. Mungo's and Remus still searching. However, when a new group entered the tent none of them was leading it. In fact, there was no healer with this group.

There were an awful lot of official looking people though. Some English, some Russian. Amelia was with them and immediately ordered two aurors to throw the people that were still crowding around the entrance out of the tent. Immediately one of the Russians, a small man, at least compared to his companions, fired some questions to the healer, who of course replied in Russian as well. After a short while the small man nodded and turned to a short portly man with a lime green bowler hat: 'Alexander says the girl would have died if that man hadn't brought him so fast. We will not file complaints.'

'That's very friendly of you.' The portly man nervously replied.

'Yes… Well…' The small Russian said, then he shook his head: 'I'll leave two of my aurors to escort them back.' And without waiting for a reply he turned around. Three of the other Russians followed him, but two of them stayed behind and took positions near the entrance. Both of them were grim-faced bearded men of easily seven feet tall. And Harry wondered why they even bothered with wands, they looked like they could simply pick up their opponents and pull them apart.

Amelia positioned several of her own aurors around the two Russians before she joined up with Sirius and started to angrily whisper something to him. It looked like Sirius pretty much ignored her comments. Meanwhile the man with the green bowler hat looked around and asked: 'What on earth happened here Alphard?'

The man didn't look up from Daphne but replied nonetheless: 'Death eaters attacked us minister. A while ago they warned me that my family was drifting to the wrong side, but I ignored them. I guess they decided to take a chance while we were out of the manor.'

'Death eaters?' The small man, now identified as minister Fudge, frowned: 'But you-know-who was killed years ago, why would they still gather together?'

'I'm sure Dumbledore shared his suspicions with you minister.' James suggested from next to Harry.

Fudge impatiently waved that suggestion away: 'Ridiculous nonsense. No one can return from the other side… I think those escaped prisoners were behind it.'

Amelia stood up and said: 'Two of the attackers were captured and have been brought to auror headquarters. We might learn some interesting things. However, it doesn't really matter if Voldemort returned or if his followers are forming an army, we do need to invest in the auror force immediately.'

Fudge looked to her for several seconds before he reluctantly nodded: 'Maybe you're right. We should discuss it tomorrow. However, it seems like once again their attack was quite ineffective if they didn't even manage to take down one family.'

Alphard positively growled before he said: 'We were lucky that help showed up so fast. And to be perfectly honest without Daphne and Astoria we would have already lost by then.' He finally looked up from his daughter and nodded respectfully to Harry: 'It seems you taught them well in that DA thing Harry. Especially Daphne, she stunned two before I even realized that we were under attack. I guess it helped that they didn't want to kill us, but still.'

'DA?' Fudge wondered while looking at Harry. Harry nervously swallowed and explained: 'It's a defence club at Hogwarts, we formed it in first year when we had a very bad teacher. And everybody really liked it so we kept it running after that.'

Somehow, the minister seemed not to like that. But he slowly replied: 'I see.'

Again, there was some tumult at the entrance. Harry pulled his eyes away from the minister and saw Tonks flashing her badge and pushing both British and Russian aurors away while leading a small team of five people dressed in medical robes into the tent. The team was led by an old lady with dark gray hair. She immediately took command: 'Bill, Claire, help this gentleman.' Then she looked around and frowned at the crowd: 'Everybody who is not related to this girl should leave the tent right now! That includes you minister!'

Next to Harry his father stood up and pulled him up as well: 'Come on Harry, there is nothing we can do and we would only bother the healers. Daphne will be fine, don't worry.'

He reluctantly followed his father and the others out of the tent. But he was quite happy when they only walked some twenty feet to join with his mother and the others of their group. Only Tonks and Amelia had stayed with the aurors near the tent entrance. Hermione was the first to ask: 'We heard Daphne was hurt?'

'Yes, but she should be fine now that the healers have arrived.' James calmly replied, before adding: 'Although she might have to stay in bed for a few days or so.'

'That's a relief.' Hermione sighed, and most of the others nodded their agreement.

Lily changed the subject: 'Did I see Fudge leaving just before you?'

Sirius snorted: 'Yeah, I caused a bit of an incident when I pulled that Russian healer to Daphne. It worked out though. The stupid moron still doesn't believe that Voldemort is back. He said he would discuss the idea of investing in the auror squad tomorrow, which means that Malfoy will talk him out of it before noon.'

'Voldemort?' Edna wanted to know.

Suddenly all the magical people exchanged nervous glances. Eventually Lily replied: 'He's a terrorist. For a while we thought he was gone, but he returned recently.'

'Oh.' Edna looked worried: 'Is Hermione in danger?'

'Not really.' Lily immediately reassured her: 'Both Hogwarts and Lionfire Hall are among the safest places in all of the magical world. And for now we don't expect Voldemort to enter the muggle world.' And even if he did they had placed extensive wards around both the Granger home and their dentistry practice, but when Lily didn't mention those Harry figured she had a reason for that. So he stayed quiet as well.

They kept on talking for a while, but Harry simply ignored them. Instead, he kept looking at the Greengrass' tent. It seemed to take a long time until finally Alphard walked outside. He looked around and when he saw them he walked over and smiled: 'I don't know how I can ever repay you. Without you Daphne would have died, and most likely the rest of my family as well.'

'She's okay then?' Harry immediately asked.

Alphard smiled at him: 'Yes, she is still sleeping though. I think she would like it if you came to visit her tomorrow. Most likely she would like all of you to visit sometime, but according to the healer one visitor at a time would be better.'

Harry looked up at his parents, who exchanged a quick glance before Lily replied: 'I think we can arrange something. Will you be alright Alphard? I mean, it seems your family is a target.'

The man simply nodded: 'Our wards may be less impressive than those of Lionfire Hall, but they are strong enough. And we have a lot of allies that are connected to those wards, so if they are under attack they will be automatically alerted. I guess I should have realized that we would be vulnerable here…'

'So, your daughters will stay with the DA?' Frank wanted to know.

Alphard looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then he shrugged: 'I think that if I try to stop them they will prove more dangerous than the death eaters. Beside that, I was impressed by them tonight… So, yes, they will. And you can tell your mother I would like to have a meeting with her before the next wizengamot session.'

Frank smiled: 'She will like that.'

Alphard nodded and returned a very small smile. Then he said: 'Well, if you'll excuse me I go back to the tent. My family is heading back to the manor as soon as possible. I'll see you tomorrow then?'

Harry nodded, but it was his mother who replied: 'We'll be there at two PM if that's alright with you.'

'Sounds good.' Was all that Alphard replied before walking back towards his tent.

— The next day —

Harry had followed his parents to the Greengrass house. It was smaller than Lionfire Hall, but looked more formal. He had politely listened to the conservation between the adults for a while, but after Isla explained that Daphne was alright he had pretty much ignored the rest until Alphard suggested that Astoria should show Harry to Daphne's room.

He followed the small girl up to two stairways and through a small hallway to a nondescript brown door. Astoria didn't even knock, she simply opened the door a bit, put her head around it and asked: 'Are you awake?'

'Obviously.' Daphne dryly replied, then she added: 'Is Harry with you?'

Astoria didn't answer but pulled her head back and looked at Harry: 'See, she doesn't even care about me anymore.'

Harry chuckled: 'I'm sure she does.'

Astoria ignored his reply and said: 'The healer only allows one visitor at a time. So I guess she's all yours.'

'Thanks.' Harry replied before entering the room. He was pleasantly surprised by Daphne's room. It was not even half as girly as Hermione's room, although also far away from Susan's mass of quidditch posters. Instead, there were a few large cupboards, a simple brown desk with a matching chair and two small paintings, both depicting flowers, on opposite walls. There were two huge windows above the simple bed. Beside that the room was much more orderly than his own room would ever be. Although a crumpled up _Daily Prophet _was lying in a corner. Daphne just carefully laid her _Daily Herald_ aside on her bed when Harry entered the room.

'Hey Harry, nice of you to visit.' She smiled at him. Harry couldn't help but noticing that she still looked rather weak. Her skin was a lot paler than usual. And her eyes clearly showed her weariness. After a few seconds he finally replied: 'Of course. How are you feeling today?'

'Frustrated.' Daphne simply replied, 'I keep wondering if I could have done something differently. And beside that the healers are telling me I should stay in bed for two weeks at least. And even after that I will still have to be careful. Some of my organs and bones are still healing, and very vulnerable while they do so. I'll be so far behind all of you when we get back to Hogwarts. Oh, take the chair by the way. I'll get a sore neck if you remain standing.'

Harry pulled the chair away from the desk and sat down before he shrugged: 'I'm sure you'll catch up soon enough. And if I have to believe your father you and Astoria were fantastic yesterday.'

Daphne actually blushed: 'I'm not so sure about that. I mean, I got wounded didn't I?'

Again he could only shrug: 'You were outnumbered by adult wizards as well. Anyway, I was thinking… Since you are the first of the DA who actually was in a fight, maybe we could study it sometime? In a pensieve I mean?'

Daphne looked thoughtful. Eventually she said: 'Why not I guess. If it helps someone in another fight… I'll ask my parents to help me store the memory. Oh, and I actually thought of something for the DA… I noticed how the death eaters were hindering each other while trying to get into the tent. We should work on fighting as a team, even in cramped areas.'

Harry nodded and made a mental note of it. Most of the time their practice fights had been in large open areas. It made sense that not all real situations would be like that. Daphne used his short silence to ask: 'Can we see what happened with the basilisk as well? I wondered about it ever since I saw your mother in that suit.'

Harry hesitated: 'I guess. I should ask my parents about it though.'

'Why?' Daphne wanted to know.

'Well, there might be some parts of that memory that we don't want Voldemort to know about.' Harry tried to explain, 'And while we trust all of you, my parents like to keep those things hidden.'

'Oh, right. Involving the prophecy?' Daphne wanted to know. Harry just nodded and she continued: 'I guess I can understand that. That was shocking to hear about by the way. I mean, I always knew you were special. But destined to fight against you-know-who?' Harry didn't really know what to say to that, and Daphne continued: 'Have you thought about what you're going to do after you defeat him?'

Harry snorted: 'To be honest I only wonder if and how I will be able to defeat him. Oh, and call him Voldemort please.'

'Of course you will win.' Daphne firmly replied, which would have sounded more impressive if she hadn't interrupted herself for a huge yawn halfway through her reply.

'Are you getting tired?' Harry asked, half rising from his chair.

'Oh no, don't you walk away on me!' Daphne protested.

With a chuckle Harry sat down again. He tried to answer her earlier question: 'To be honest I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do if I survive against Voldemort. Maybe quidditch.'

'Not interested in politics I guess?' Daphne asked.

Shrugging he replied: 'Not really, why?'

'Because after you defeat V… V… Voldemort-' She paused for a few seconds, clearly surprised that she had actually said the name, 'you will be at the same spot were Dumbledore was after he defeated Grindelwald. And I'm sure he could have easily been minister of magic after that if he wanted.'

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. Eventually he said: 'I don't know for sure yet, but I don't think that I would like that job.'

'Fair enough.' Daphne said, then she suddenly changed the topic: 'Did you read the papers today?'

'Only the sports section.' Harry admitted. Well, the _Prophet_ had only mentioned the world cup final on page nine. They had been too busy complaining about how the ministry failed to protect their people to spend any amount of time on the most important quidditch game of the year. But the _Herald _had dedicated several pages to the match, including interviews with players and experts.

'Oh, I didn't reach that part yet.' Daphne said, then she pointed towards the crumpled up _Prophet_ and explained: 'I started with the Prophet, but got a bit too angry about the way they tried to blame the ministry. I'm not saying that the ministry did brilliantly yesterday, but I'm not sure how they could have expected this. And the way I remember it the whole thing was over in five minutes.' Harry just nodded in agreement and Daphne continued: 'Beside that, the _Herald_ actually sent a journalist to ask us some questions. The _Prophet _printed a reply from my father as well, but they never talked with him, and he can't remember saying it.'

'Odd.' Harry frowned, it looked a bit strange to him to actually make up quotes for a newspaper article. Then he continued: 'I guess the _Herald _simply is the better newspaper. What did your father tell them?'

Now Daphne frowned: 'It's strange. He's clearly picking a side now. I mean, he told the journalist that he was going to meet with Madam Longbottom, who is considered as the leader of the light families in the Wizengamot.'

'What's wrong with that?' Harry wondered.

'Nothing really.' Daphne agreed, 'But it's strange. We always were a neutral family, I actually had to send five letters back home before my parents finally agreed that it was a good idea for Tracey and me to try and join the DA. And now they do this. I guess they should not have attacked us.'

'Five letters?' Harry wondered, 'What made them agree?'

'Remember what Tracey said when you asked her why she wanted to join?' Daphne asked in reply, 'I told my parents I would not leave her alone, so I had to work on my fighting.'

Harry had to think for a few seconds before he remembered. Tracey, as a half-blood Slytherin, had been warned by some of the older Slytherins that half-blood girls were in risk of abuse inside their house. The very idea still seemed sick to him, but he asked: 'Did the two of you ever have to use your lessons?'

'Not yet.' Daphne replied while shaking her head, 'But according to the prefect that warned us you're more or less safe during the first three years. Well, I would be safe until seventh year, but Tracey isn't.'

He shook his head: 'Well, if you ever need help just call us. Or maybe Sirius, he will teach DADA this year and most likely knows how to get into your common room.'

Daphne frowned: 'I think we will be safe. With Draco gone, most of our year turned a bit friendlier. And the younger years are on our hand as well. But thanks for the offer anyway. But how would I call you? Send an owl?'

'Oh… I totally forgot. I brought you a present.' Harry blushed. Suddenly, Daphne looked very shy as well. He pulled a small item out of his pocket and then pulled his wand out of his other pocket to enlarge it. Then he handed the simple hand mirror to Daphne and asked: 'Ever seen one of us talking into one of our mirrors?'

'Once or twice.' Daphne agreed while looking into the mirror: 'How does it work?'

'Just look into it and say the name of the person that you want to speak to. Then his or her mirror will heat up.' Harry explained, 'You can try and contact Hermione if you want to, I asked her to stay available today.'

'What do you mean? Stay available? Can you also block it or something?' Daphne wondered.

'Not really. But you do not have to pick it up if you don't want to. And beside that, it is possible to miss the signal. That's why we always keep it on a necklace, it's hard to miss when your necklace suddenly heats up against your skin.' Harry explained.

'Right.' Daphne nodded, before turning back to the mirror and saying: 'Hermione?'

Seconds later Hermione's voice sounded: 'Hey Daphne, took you long enough.'

Daphne smiled: 'Sorry, we were talking.'

'Oh, that's alright. How are you?'

'Fine, thanks.' Daphne replied.

Harry could hear Hermione's chuckle before she replied: 'I'll ask Harry for the details, I can imagine that you get tired about explaining it all the time.'

'Thanks.' Daphne said again, 'Look, I don't want to be impolite, but it feels weird to talk to you while Harry is looking at me.'

Again Hermione chuckled: 'I know the feeling. You two have fun then, I'll talk to you on the train. Or maybe before by mirror.'

'Right, see you then.' Daphne agreed, she watched the mirror for a few more seconds before she turned to Harry again: 'So, now I can contact all four of you?'

Harry nodded: 'And my parents, Remus, Tonks, Sirius, Amelia, Frank and Alice. We were planning to give all members of our new circle one of those at Hogwarts. But I figured you'd like to chat with some people while you have to stay in bed. If you want I'll ask my parents if we can bring one to Tracey.'

'That would be great. And thanks.' Daphne smiled while carefully putting the mirror on her night table. 'I guess I should keep it on my skin as well eventually. But for now I still need a lot of sleep, so I guess this is better.'

'If I'm keeping you awake too long you should just send me away.' Harry offered.

'No!' Daphne protested, 'Stay a bit longer. We didn't even talk about fun things so far.' Suddenly she smiled mischievously, 'For example, did you make a fool of yourself when the Veelas showed up?'

Harry grinned: 'No I didn't, my occlumency shields protected me. Although according to my dad it won't work if I ever get close to a Veela. But I saw those two guys who…'

_A/N: Bit of a sudden end of the chapter, but at least not a cliffhanger this time;) Next chapter will be the start of fourth year. _

Verschil kranten


	54. Fourth year begins

**Fourth year begins**

Once again their new defence teacher had enlarged their train compartment. But unlike last year Sirius had decided to leave them alone while he patrolled the train. Still, the compartment quickly filled up when first Daphne and Tracey arrived, this year they were followed by Daphne's younger sister Astoria. A few minutes later Luna Lovegood drifted inside again, and just before the train left Ron and Ginny also joined them. The three third year girls immediately started a discussion about their new subjects, while the fourth years formed their own group.

Daphne had to ensure everybody that she was perfectly alright again. Of course, she added that she was worried about keeping up with the others in their new training regime. To which Tracey snorted and explained that Daphne had been working out like crazy during the last few weeks. They quickly moved on to less important subjects. Every now and then they were interrupted by other students that walked in to say hi. Most of them said a few things about the quidditch world cup before leaving again, only Hannah Abbot stayed a bit longer because she asked: 'Oh, by the way. Do any of you know what is supposed to happen at Hogwarts this year? My father keeps mentioning that the ministry is planning something big.'

Daphne shook her head: 'So does mine. But he doesn't want to tell us about it. It's frustrating really. Do you know anything about it Susan?'

Susan blinked a few times and eventually replied: 'My aunt didn't tell me anything, same for Sirius.' Which was true, but she had studied William's foretellings together with Harry, Hermione and Neville. So she knew perfectly well that this year Hogwarts would host the triwizards tournament. Of course, Hermione was the only one who had actually read up on it. She was also the worst liar of their group, at least when it was between friends. So it was a good thing that nobody was going to ask a muggleborn if she knew anything about it. Even now, Hermione already looked a bit guilty.

Hannah shook her head: 'That's a shame. I really expected you guys to know more.'

'I'll guess Dumbledore will tell us at the feast this evening.' Harry commented and Hannah nodded. Then she shot him an odd look before finally leaving again. Confusingly enough Daphne and Hermione exchanged a grin before Hermione suddenly returned to their earlier talk about what to expect from Sirius as a teacher. He happily joined them though, it was still an odd idea to imagine the most crazy and often immature marauder as a teacher.

When they arrived at Hogsmeade they left the train into a veritable thunderstorm. Ice cold rain was pouring down so fast that Harry wanted to look up and see if anyone was throwing down buckets of water. Hermione commented: 'Oooh, I wouldn't fancy crossing the lake in this weather.'

The others just agreed in silence while sprinting to one of the horseless carriages. Once they arrived at the castle they sprinted inside where they were welcomed by Peeves and his ice cold water balloons. Professor McGonagall stormed out of the great hall to stop the poltergeist, but she skidded on a wet spot of floor and almost strangled Hermione while trying to stay upright. All together, the group that entered the great hall did not look too happy. Although they looked much better than the group of soaked first years that entered a few minutes later.

One of them, Dennis Creevey, actually joined the Gryffindor table and told his other brother Colin, a nice but sometimes too hyperactive third year, that he had actually fell in the lake. Apparently the great squid had pushed him out. Strangely enough both brothers seemed to think it was exciting…

All of them enthusiastically worked their way through the feast, every now and then one of them talked to nearly headless Nick. And soon enough even the last treacle tarts disappeared. Albus Dumbledore got to his feet again. The buzz of chatter filling the Hall ceased almost at once, so that only the howling wind and pounding rain could be heard.

'So!' said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. 'Now that we are all fed and watered. I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices. Most importantly, I should introduce our new defence against the dark arts professor, Mr. Sirius Black.' Next to him Sirius stood up and bowed to the loud cheers from the students. Harry noticed that all DA members looked rather excited about their new teacher.

Dumbledore waited for the cheers to die down before he continued: 'Mr Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr Filch's office, in anybody would like to check it.'

The corners of Dumbledore's mouth twitched. He continued, 'As ever, I would like to remind you all that the Forest in the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year. It is also my painful duty to inform you that the inter-house Quidditch Cup will not take place this year.'

'What?' Harry gasped. He knew about the tournament of course, but nobody had told him it would be in the way of quidditch. He looked around for his fellow members of the Quidditch team. Soon he found Fred and George, they were mouthing soundlessly at Dumbledore, apparently too appalled to speak.

Dumbledore continued, 'This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy - but I am sure you will enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts we will be hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event which has not been held for over a century. It is my great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year.'

'You're JOKING!' said Fred Weasley loudly.

Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.

'I am not joking, Mr Weasley,' he said, 'though, now you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag and a leprechaun who all go into a bar -'

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.

'Er - but maybe this is not the time ... no ...' said Dumbledore. 'Where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament ... well, some of you will not know what this Tournament involves, so I hope those of you who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.

The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago, as a friendly competition between the tree largest European schools of wizardry - Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks.

The schools took it in turns to host the Tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be the most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities – until, that it, the death toll mounted so high that the Tournament was discontinued.'

There were some shocked looks at this. But that sentiment did not seem to be shared by the majority of students in the Hall; many of them were whispering excitedly with each other, and Harry himself was far more interested in hearing more about the Tournament than in worrying about deaths that had happened hundreds of years ago. Of course, he had read up about it. Or, better, listened to what Hermione had read about it. But he guessed it would be different this time around.

'There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the Tournament,' Dumbledore continued, 'none of which have been very successful. However, our own Department of International Magical Co-operation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that, this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger. The Heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween.'

'An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money.'

'I'm going for it!' Fred Weasley hissed down the table, his face lit with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches.

He was not the only person who seemed to be visualising themselves as Hogwarts champion.

At every house table, Harry could see people either gazing raptly at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbours. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more. Privately Harry thought he would be more than happy to simply be an onlooker. 'Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts,' the headmaster said, 'the Heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age - that is to say, seventeen years or older - will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This-' Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Weasley twins were suddenly looking furious – 'is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the Tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion.' His light-blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred and George's mutinous faces.

I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen.'

'The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October, and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning.'

Dumbledore sat down again and turned to talk to Sirius. There was a great scraping and banging as all the students got to their feet, and swarmed towards the double doors into the Entrance Hall.

'They can't do that!' said George Weasley, who had not joined the crowd moving towards the door, but was standing up and glaring at Dumbledore. 'We're seventeen in April, why can't we have a shot?'

'They're not stopping me entering,' said Fred stubbornly, also scowling at the top table. 'The champions'll get to do all sorts of stuff you'd never be allowed to do normally. And a thousand Galleons prize money!'

'Yeah,' said Ron, who had also stopped walking to the exit near the twins, a faraway look on his face. 'Yeah, a thousand Galleons ...'

'Come on,' said Hermione, 'we'll be the only ones left here if you don't move.'

Harry, Neville, Hermione, Susan, Ron, Fred and George set off for the Entrance Hall, Fred and George debating the ways in which Dumbledore might stop those who were under seventeen entering the Tournament.

'Who's the impartial judge who's going to decide who the champions are?' said Harry.

'Dunno,' said Fred, 'but it's them we'll have to fool. I reckon a couple of drops of ageing Potion might do it, George ...'

'Dumbledore knows you're not of age, though,' said Ron.

'Yeah, but he's not the one who decides who the champion is, is he?' said Fred shrewdly. 'Sounds to me like once this judge knows who wants to enter, he'll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are. Dumbledore's trying to stop us giving our names.'

'People have died, though!' said Hermione in a worried voice, although Harry was quite sure she wasn't really worrying about that. Instead, she was once again thinking if he could end up in the tournament somehow. It was a shame that they had no idea how it was supposed to happen, so it was difficult to avoid it. Harry didn't really worry about it though, Sirius had told him about the impartial judge in private. Apparently it was some kind of magical artifact and Sirius would guard it with his life as soon as it arrived at Hogwarts.

'Yeah,' said Fred airily, 'but that was years ago, wasn't it? Anyway, where's the fun without a bit of risk? Hey, Ron, what if we find out how to get round Dumbledore? Fancy entering?'

'What d'you reckon?' Ron asked Harry. 'Be cool to enter, wouldn't it? But I s'pose they might want someone older ... dunno if we've learnt enough ...'

They made their way up to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, which was still protected by the portrait of the fat lady. 'Password?' she said, as they approached.

'Balderdash,' said George, 'a prefect downstairs told me.'

The portrait swung forward to reveal a hole in the wall, through which they all climbed. A crackling fire was warming the circular common room, which was full squashy armchairs and tables. Hermione and Susan only looked around once before bidding them goodnight, and disappearing through the doorway to the girls' dormitories. It was still a bit early, but tomorrow they would wake up before breakfast for a run around the lake together with the other members of their new inner circle. And the four of them had to make a good impression.

Surprisingly Ron immediately followed Neville and Harry when they climbed up the last, spiral staircase until they reached their own dormitory, which was situated at the top of the Tower. Five four-poster beds with deep crimson hangings stood against the walls, each with its owner's trunk at the foot. It was even more surprising that Dean and Seamus were already getting into bed; Harry guessed it had been a long day. But without his plans for the early morning he would have stayed in the common room a bit longer.

Seamus had pinned his Ireland rosette, which still occassionaly shouted the name of an Irish player, to his headboard, and Dean had tacked up a poster of Viktor Krum over his bedside table. Apparently both of them had a good time at the world cup as well. His old poster of West Ham football team was pinned right next to it.

Harry, Ron and Neville got into their pyjamas and into bed. Someone - a house-elf, no doubt - had placed warming pans between the sheets. It was extremely comfortable, lying there in bed and listening to the storm raging outside.

'I might go in for it, you know,' Ron said sleepily through the darkness, 'if Fred and George find out how to ... the Tournament ... you never know, do you?'

'S'pose not ...' Harry rolled over in bed. Of course, there was no way that he was going to enter. In fact, he would try to stay out of it by all possible means. But he could not help imagining himself in a glorious scene. He was standing in the grounds, his arms raised in triumph in front of the whole school, all of whom were applauding and screaming ... he had just won the Triwizard Tournament... Daphne's face stood out particularly clearly in the blurred crowd, her face glowing with admiration...

Harry grinned into his pillow, exceptionally glad that the others couldn't see what he could. Beside that, he hardly thought Daphne's face would be glowing with admiration for something silly like winning a tournament. And according to William's foretelling, his participation in the tournament would lead to the untimely death of another champion. So, no, he was definitely not going to enter. Not even if Fred and George offered him the opportunity.

_A/N: I took about half of this chapter from canon and slightly edited it. So, if it looks familiar to you, that's true :D Bit of a short chapter, but next one will be longer again (and more different from canon as well). _


	55. Professor Black

**Professor Black**

Sirius had been waiting for them after their first morning run and had suggested that they'd pick a regular evening for their inner circle meetings since there were no quidditch practices to work around this year anyway. Soon they had agreed that Monday evenings would be used for the smaller group, while Thursday evening was still dedicated to regular DA meetings. Oddly enough none of the first six years had astronomy on Thursday. Second and Third year were sharing the Wednesday, which meant that each week one of the years would have night classes for observation while the other one had afternoon theory classes. And sixth year actually had Saturday night classes. This was apparently a tradition and according to Fred and George one of the many reasons why they had decided to drop the subject after their OWLs. Harry could perfectly understand that and was quite happy with his Tuesday night astronomy lessons. He wondered if the school would still find a way to accommodate for the DA next year, when all seven years were represented.

However, that was not his problem. Instead, he should focus on his first defence class from professor Black. Somehow, that sounded even more wrong than professor Lupin. Professor Potter had been even worse for Harry though, although his mother was much more the teacher type. This year, they shared defence with the Hufflepuffs, who were already seated when Harry and the other Gryffindors entered. It had been a long walk from greenhouse four and its bubotubers.

Harry took a seat in front of Ernie Macmillan while Hermione sat down next to him. He looked around and saw all kind of posters depicting wizards and witches in various duels or duelling poses. Of course, in front of the class Sirius was lazily hanging in his chair, tapping his wand against his hand, while waiting for everybody to sit down. As soon as the last person, Seamus Finnegan, finally sat down Sirius immediately shot a silent spell at him. Almost simultaneously he fired another spell at Harry, who ducked and barely avoided smashing his face into the table. The spell went straight over his head though.

'Nice one Harry!' Sirius commented over the laughter that had erupted. He carefully looked up and saw Seamus sporting shocking pink hair. Slowly he turned around and saw that Ernie was looking quite silly with neon orange hair. After a few seconds Sirius cancelled the charms and started to explain: 'My name is Sirius Black and I'm your new defence instructor. I've been an auror for several years and the most important lesson that my instructor taught me was: CONSTANT VIGILANCE!' he bellowed the last two words which made the entire class jump up.

Sirius only smiled at them and said: 'From now on, when you enter my classroom be prepared to shield or dodge a spell from me. It will not improve or lower your mark for this class, but I will keep using silly charms like the ones I just used in the hope that you will want to avoid being hit anyway.'

'That hardly seems fair.' Hermione objected and when Sirius only raised an eyebrow she continued: 'That you are allowed to shoot spells at us while we can't attack a teacher.'

Sirius frowned: 'Whatever gave you the idea that you can't attack me? As long as it doesn't disrupt class too much I guess… Let's say a maximum of two shots a week for each student, whoever manages to hit me scores two points for his house. Third try gets you in detention of course.'

Harry had surreptitiously moved his wand in front of him while Sirius was speaking and now fired a tickling charm at Sirius. Susan had the same idea, but Sirius effortlessly blocked both spells and said: 'Like I didn't see those two coming. Remember: CONSTANT VIGILANCE.' The entire class jumped again and he shook his head: 'Come on, that's too easy. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!'

This time half the class had been expecting it and Sirius grinned: 'Better. Anyway, now that we established some simple rules about this class-' He didn't even stop talking while firing a purple spell at Hannah, who simply dodged it- 'let me explain our course goals for this year. I talked with you two former teachers, and I think Lily gave you a very decent introduction into DADA. Then Remus focused on dangerous animals and what to do when you encounter them… Let's forget about Quirrell for now. Anyway, what you are lacking in so far -nice one Neville-' He interrupted himself while dodging a purple spell from Neville, 'is a decent understanding about curses. Both about how to use them and how to protect against them. During this year we will work on several different shield charms, a nice variation of curses and hexes and we will start to look into chain-casting. Who can tell me something about that?'

Nobody was surprised when Hermione's hand was the first to shoot into the air. After a few seconds Sirius nodded to her and she explained: 'Chain-casting means that a wizard fires several spells in quick succession. Mostly by using part of the first spells movement to start the second spell.'

'More or less right.' Sirius agreed, 'It is also possible to chain spells for effect instead of speed. For example, if you practise on combining an aguamenti charm with a freezing charm you can shape the battlefield a bit. And although the wand movements hardly combine it does help when you get some experience in that particular combination before actually using it. Of course, there is a huge number of possible combinations like that, and I can only advise you to think about it. In fact, your homework for this first week will be to think of one possible combination and explain the benefits to me.'

There were some groans when homework was mentioned so early in the lesson, but soon enough Sirius had everybody's attention again when he started to show a few standard chains and possible defences against them. Somehow, Harry felt he would not need his theory book much this year.

— Monday evening —

The next Monday all sixteen members of the inner circle gathered in the defence against the dark arts classroom. Sirius was a bit late and the students were happily chatting when he finally arrived. The man was carrying a few large packages and unceremoniously dumped them on the ground while complaining: 'Stupid basilisk suits can't be shrunken, and even the featherweight charm doesn't stick for more than ten seconds. Do you guys know any trustworthy house elves in Hogwarts? Just in case I ever need to do something like this again.'

It was Susan who replied first: 'I think they all report to Dumbledore if they feel the need.'

'That doesn't work then.' Sirius grunted before looking at her and saying: 'Disillusionment charm works nicely then?'

Susan nodded and tapped her wand to her chest. Harry, Neville and Hermione copied her movement and suddenly everybody could see that all four of them had been wearing their basilisk armour already. Sirius just shook his head: 'Lily keeps amazing me.' When he noticed some questioning looks he added: 'Basilisk hide armour is highly resistant to spells, but Lily somehow managed to develop a modified disillusionment charm that only hides the armour. She tried to explain the theory to me, but I lost her after a few minutes. Anyway…' He opened one of the packages and pulled a set of armour out of it, there was a small note attached to it and after reading it he said: 'Hannah, come get your suit.'

It took some twenty minutes to get everybody dressed up. In fact, Sirius was the only one not wearing his suit, which he explained by pointing to the two now empty packages and complaining about how they were heavy enough. He did conjure a very large mirror when they were all done though, and Harry had to admit that sixteen basilisk clad students made an impressive sight. A few minutes ago he had already privately agreed with Fred and George that basilisk armour could look hot when he saw Daphne walking around in her new suit.

Sirius gave them some fifteen minutes to get used to the weight of the armour before he conjured a few large circular targets that resembled simple dart boards made up of ten concentric circles. He explained: 'You have been working on your strength and condition already; from now on we are going to work on your magical power though. We will start with a simple exercise. I want you to fire thirty stunners in a row towards one of these targets. They are magically enhanced to measure both your power and accuracy, so try to make your spells as powerful and well aimed as you can.'

Harry was one of the first to go for it and he scored an 89 for power and an 83 for accuracy. According to Sirius this was a very impressive score for someone his age, and this seemed to be confirmed when none of the others matched his power score. Although Neville managed to get close with an 83. There were several high seventies as well, especially amongst the fifth years, but the majority of the group got high sixties or low seventies. Which Sirius assured them was still above average.

Several others scored eighties for accuracy though, including Hermione and Daphne. It was Katie Bell who outperformed everybody on that field with a 98 though. Sirius looked flabbergasted when she finished her run and only after a few seconds he said: 'While the power score can easily pass the one hundred mark accuracy is actually measured in percents, so there is hardly room for improvement for you on that field anymore Katie. I think Harry once mentioned a little practise shooting you did after a quidditch match?'

Katie blushed prettily under all the attention before she proudly replied: 'Yeah, I shot a few harmful hexes at Harry from the other side of the field. I did hit most of them.'

'Impressive.' Sirius nodded, 'We should find some time to experiment with that. I can think of a few nice hexes for long range casting.' After a long silence he shook his head and nodded to Luna: 'You're next Luna.'

Luna scored two high seventies, and after her Ron was the last to go and almost copied her numbers. Sirius quickly browsed through the parchment that the dart board had suddenly produced and shook his head: 'You guys are unusually strong for a group of Hogwarts students. Still, you will need to improve a bit more. Magic is different for everybody, but in general your magical core keeps growing until you are twenty-one. With a fast growth spurt generally between fourteen and sixteen. The average twenty-one year old wizard or witch has a score of one hundred. However, with some magical exercise you can reach that level faster and even grow past it.'

Susan had raised her hand and when Sirius nodded to her she asked: 'Does that mean that the average death eater has a score of hundred?'

Sirius looked thoughtful for a few seconds before he replied: 'It could be a bit higher since I do not expect Voldemort-' He shook his head when several people flinched but simply continued talking, 'to mark people who are magically weak. But since most death eaters are generally lazy I think most of them will be around that level. There are a few exceptions of course…'

'Is that pure luck? That some people are stronger I mean?' Hannah wanted to know.

Again Sirius considered his answer carefully: 'Talent is definitely a part of it. But magic also is a muscle, if you use it for difficult tasks all the time it will improve in strength. If the most complicated spell you use is a cleaning charm it will reduce. My goal is to get all of you on the way to your maximum strength as soon as possible.'

'And how are we going to do that?' Fred asked.

'It's quite simple actually.' Sirius replied, 'You know that dizzy feeling you can get after a really difficult transfiguration or charms class?' Most people nodded, although Harry and a few others looked clueless. So Sirius clarified: 'It also can happen after another class or even during homework I guess. You know? When you simply use a lot of strong spells in quick succession your head can start to feel a bit airy.' Now all the others but Harry also nodded. He still had no clue what Sirius was talking about, but he guessed he would find out soon enough. The marauder continued: 'Basically that is the way our body tells us that we used too much magic and that we should try to calm down. The more powerful you are, the longer you can keep on casting until you feel that dizziness. Although, to be honest, it has more to do with the depth of your magical core than the size if you know what I mean. Still, both of those can be improved by simply shooting as much spells as you can until you start to feel dizzy. If you do that a few times a week I guarantee you that your power score is going to rise dramatically. Let's give it a test run today, starting with the lowest score from last test.' He browsed his list and called: 'Hannah, come and give it a try.'

Sirius conjured a large block of stone and asked Hannah to transfigure it into various objects. After about a minute and some twelve transformations she started to complain about a dizzy feeling. Sirius made her do two more spells before calling Katie for her test. Gradually, people started to last longer and longer until Neville managed to do thirty-five spells before complaining about the dizzy feeling.

Somewhat nervously Harry took his place; he still had no idea what kind of feeling they were all talking about. But he guessed he would find out soon enough. He was simply following Sirius' instructions to change the size, colour or shape of the block of stone for a while until Sirius raised a hand and asked: 'Are you still not feeling anything Harry?'

He shook his head: 'No, why?'

'I think because you have been going twice as long as I did.' Neville dryly answered before Sirius could say anything. However, the older man just grinned and said: 'That's more or less it. Anyway, Harry? When was the last time you felt that dizziness?'

Harry shrugged uncomfortably: 'I don't think I ever felt it before.'

There were some whispers behind his back and Sirius blinked a few times before he asked: 'Never?'

Again Harry shrugged, now even more uncomfortable: 'I'm sure it will happen soon enough though if I keep going.'

Sirius hesitated: 'I'm not sure… You never had a class that taxed you to the limit of your magical power?'

For a few seconds Harry considered that. Eventually he replied: 'I don't think so. Usually I figured I was done when a teacher told me my spell work was really good or strong. Or both. Is that a problem?'

'Not really I guess.' Sirius slowly replied, 'It might actually be a good thing, considering your situation. Anyway, I don't think simple transfiguration is going to make you test your limits then. Do you know how to conjure things?'

'No.' Harry simply admitted.

'Conjuration is only taught in sixth year.' Alicia came to his aid.

'Of course.' Sirius agreed distractedly, 'It is very power consuming though. What is the most advanced spell you know Harry?'

Harry hesitated, not sure if he could answer that. Eventually he decided they had selected this group for a reason and he offered: 'The animagus transformation?'

Unsurprisingly, there were a few surprised gasps behind him and he had the feeling that there would be another subject added to those meetings from now on. But Sirius shook his head: 'That's complex alright, but it doesn't really take much power. Especially since you still can't do the full transformation. What else?'

Before Harry could reply Hermione suggested: 'The patronus charm maybe?'

Sirius thoughtfully nodded: 'That could work I guess. Ever tried summoning more than one patronus at a time Harry?' Harry shook his head, he had thought about trying it after he saw several adults directing multiple patronuses during the dementor attack at the quidditch field. But somehow he never found the time for it. Sirius grinned: 'No time like the present. Just keep repeating the charm, don't focus on keeping the ones you summon alive but just summon new ones. The first one should fade when you summon your fifth or sixth one.'

With a reluctant shrug Harry started to summon patronuses. His first stag only disappeared after his eight spell though, and for a while he kept summoning replacements so that the room was filled with seven or eight patronuses for a while. Harry didn't really count how many times he whispered the words 'expecto patronum', but after what felt like a long time he finally started to feel something in his head. He summoned five more patronuses before he finally said: 'I'm starting to feel dizzy now.'

'About time.' Sirius muttered while watching Harry's next patronus, two spells later he said: 'You can stop now Harry, and good show.'

There was a long silence while everybody looked at Harry. He tried to ignore the staring, but shifted uncomfortably a few times anyway. Eventually Sirius started talking again: 'Well, all of you now know how to work on your magical power. Simply transfigure something for a while. Make sure to make at least two runs before next week. Harry, if you could stay for a bit while the others return to their dormitories?'

Hermione quickly instructed everybody about how to activate the basilisk armour's disillusionment charm before the other students started to leave. Harry didn't really care for the few awed and even jealous looks that came his way. But at least Hermione, Neville and Susan seemed not to care. And Daphne gave him a positively beaming smile before following Tracey out of the classroom.

When everybody else had left Harry turned to Sirius: 'So, why did I have to stay?'

'Two reasons really.' Sirius immediately replied, 'First I want to make sure that you didn't overtax yourself with all those patronuses. I'm not sure if I would be able to keep summoning them for so long, but I am sure that I will never get the chance to test it if I wouldn't make sure that you were alright. Your mother would kill me. So I'll keep you here for some thirty minutes just to make sure.'

Harry snorted: 'Fair enough I guess. And the second reason?'

'You surprised me tonight.' Sirius replied, and when he saw Harry's expression he quickly added: 'Which is a good thing. Especially knowing that you will have to face Voldemort sometime. If this is the power you have at your age I can only imagine how strong you will be eventually. To be perfectly honest I sometimes wondered if you would have a chance… I guess we simply never tested you seriously enough.'

Harry shrugged: 'I don't know.'

Sirius snorted: 'I think your parents will like to hear this though. Let's call them.'

Before Harry could say anything the marauder had pulled his mirror out of his shirt and enlarged it to the size of a large television screen. He called: 'James!'

Seconds later Harry's father showed up in the mirror and he grinned: 'Hey Sirius, how did it…' His eyes turned to Harry and surprised he added: 'Harry?'

'Can you call Lily and Remus? That way I only have to explain it once.' Sirius said.

James nodded: 'Sure, they are in the room as well.'

Seconds later both Lily and Remus popped up next to James and Sirius grinned: 'Harry here ruined or carefully developed test.'

There was a short silence until Lily asked: 'How?' Harry was not sure if she was surprised, happy or mad.

'He did about a hundred small transfigurations and still was not feeling dizzy.' Sirius explained, to which all of the other adults looked surprised. Eventually it was James who replied: 'I managed something similar in my fifth year, but I was generally seen as a transfiguration prodigy… Nice job Harry, did you try something else after that?'

Harry nodded: 'Sirius asked me to summon patronuses?'

'As in, more or them at the same time?' Remus wanted to know and when Harry nodded he quickly added: 'How many did you manage?'

'I had seven or eight at best.' Harry replied, next to him Sirius added: 'And he performed the spell sixty-four times in a row.'

There was a long silence until Lily proudly said: 'Very well done Harry. With some exercise you should be able to defeat Sirius in a duel soon enough.'

Sirius snorted: 'In his dreams.' Then he turned to Harry and explained: 'It was our plan to start some regular duels for the inner circle. Basically because we have to prepare you to defeat first Dumbledore for the elder wand and later Voldemort.' He shook his head, 'Albus won't know what hit him during your first try.'

James grinned: 'Let's make sure not to tell him. Your first duel against the headmaster is only scheduled for next year though, so you can have a few practice matches against all of us during the summer.'

'Cool, I guess.' Harry replied, he had been wondering when he would start to fight real duels against adults for a while now.

Lily nodded and said: 'Anyway, not that I don't appreciate you telling us about this personally, but I have the feeling that Sirius had another reason to keep you with him?'

'Two actually.' Sirius replied. 'First I wanted to make sure that Harry was alright after all those patronuses.' Lily positively beamed at him and he continued: 'I'm tempted to think that he is. And second I was wondering if you could help me think of a spell Harry can use to work on his magical core. He can hardly fill his dormitory with patronuses. And small transfigurations seem to be too easy.'

The three other adults looked at each other for a few seconds. Then James suggested: 'The only thing I can think of is conjuration. I know it's generally only taught in sixth year because it takes so much power, but if Harry can summon sixty-four patronuses in a row that should be fine. And if you conjure metals or so you only have to conjure very small items to use a lot of power.'

Both Remus and Lily nodded but Sirius objected: 'The problem is that I can't teach him how to do that. I mean, I can conjure things myself, but I hardly understand the theory involved. I just do it. You would be much better suited to teach it to him James.'

James nodded, apparently happy with the idea. But he frowned and said: 'There is no way that I can get you started on conjuration through mirror talk tough Harry. I guess I could visit Sirius' office every Tuesday evening and give you some pointers if you want?'

'I have astronomy on Tuesday.' Harry replied. James nodded and offered: 'Friday then?' Harry also nodded.

It was Lily who spoke up next: 'Until you can manage with conjuration you should visit Sirius every now and then to try and exhaust yourself with patronuses again. I know it will take a bit of effort to leave the common room every so often, but it's important to get you as strong as possible now that you're finally old enough for those exercises.'

Harry shrugged: 'If anyone asks I'll just tell them that Sirius needs help preparing his lessons.'

'Hey!' Sirius protested, before smirking: 'You might want to remember that we are going to fight one on one duels soon enough before taunting me.'

Harry mock-gulped while his parents and Remus laughed. They chatted about less important things for a while before Harry finally left for the Gryffindor common room well after curfew.

_A/N: And fourth year finally really takes of with professor Black. Somehow, even after this chapter, it feels odd to see Sirius as a professor. But I think the students will enjoy his classes. Also, a first clear sign about Harry's potential._


	56. Quidditch after all?

**Quidditch after all?**

It was the Monday before the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students and Sirius had asked Harry to come a bit earlier for their evening meeting. And so Harry and Susan arrived at Sirius' office about thirty minutes before the other students would arrive. To their surprise they found Fred, George, Ron, Alicia, Katie and even Angelina, who was not even a part of the inner DA, already chatting with Sirius. Which meant that both of them were happy that their basilisk suits were still disillusioned.

Sirius beamed at him when he came in and immediately said: 'Good, now that Harry has joined us I finally have last years quidditch team complete. I have a surprise for you!'

'Can we play the season after all?' Fred asked hopefully.

With a rueful smile Sirius admitted: 'No, a bit smaller surprise. Two days ago there was a meeting between the three headmasters and some of the Hogwarts staff members to iron out the last details for the tournament. I was part of that meeting. There was some talk about how they would like to see the students of the various schools mingle a bit. Well, to be honest, Dumbledore seemed the only headmaster really interested in that… Anyway, I suggested a few friendly quidditch games between the Hogwarts house teams and whatever teams their delegations could grab together.'

'Cool!' Fred enthusiastically replied, while all the other quidditch fanatics nodded in agreement. Sirius laughed and continued: 'Madam Maxime, from Beauxbatons, was worried that she would not be able to field a good team. But in the end she agreed. Karkaroff was quite sure that his team could easily win against any house team. Of course, McGonagall had to defend her cubs and now the first match will be Gryffindor against Durmstrang.'

'It sounds like fun.' Harry said, already thinking that this meant that the opposing seeker would be a sixth or seventh year due to the age restrictions around the tournament. With some luck, this meant he would be a lot lighter than his opponent which would help him out fly him or her. Of course, there was no way to be sure about that before they met the opposing team.

'Definitely.' Angelina agreed, 'But we're missing a keeper then.'

'No you don't.' Sirius grinned at her while Ron also tried to say something. 'Snape was complaining that three members of his team graduated last year. He wanted to call them back for the match. In the end, the three headmasters agreed that each house team could ask one former team member to return. I already floocalled Wood and he was positively giddy at the idea. Sorry, Ron, you wanted to say something?'

Ron hesitated for a second but then he quickly said: 'No, never mind. It sounds like fun.'

'Yeah, I agree.' Sirius nodded. 'Wood was a bit worried about your form though. He suggested some training schedules, which I happily ignored.'

All members of the quidditch team chuckled. They knew how fanatical Wood was about training. After a while it was Angelina who turned serious and said: 'It would be a good idea to do one or two training sessions before the game though. But that should be enough, it's only a friendly after all. We need a keeper during those trainings though, and while I know that McLaggen was a decent keeper during the last keeper tryouts there is no way that I'm going to let him near the team.'

'Agreed.' Fred, George and Alicia quickly said. Most of the others laughed at that, but Sirius only looked bemused. He simply shrugged though. After a short silence it was Ron who timidly suggested: 'If you want to I can fly keeper during your training? I usually keep when we play games at home.'

Everybody turned to Fred and George, who were looking at each other in one of their silent conversations. Eventually it was George who said: 'It's true. And he's quite good at it actually.'

'Beside that, it might be a good idea to give Ron some training. That way, he stands a better chance against McLaggen during the tryouts next year.' Fred added.

'Very good point.' Alicia heartily agreed. Next to her Katie was nodding fervently and added: 'I was so happy when Harry replaced him. If you are going to try out next year just give me a sign and I help you with some training sessions Ron.'

Ron smiled and managed to say thanks. Sirius coughed and said: 'I don't really know this McLaggen guy, but good luck Ron. Then he turned to Susan and said: 'When are you ever going to try out for the team?'

Susan shrugged and waved towards Fred and George: 'As soon as those two clowns stop hogging the beater spots I guess.'

The clowns bowed in unison. Sirius snorted and said: 'Right. Anyway, Angelina… McGonagall wanted to make you captain for this years friendly matches at least. Could you go to her office and tell her that you guys all want to play?'

'I'm captain?' Angelina replied, obviously surprised by the news.

'Of course you are.' Alicia argued, 'You have been on the team the longest.'

'Together with the two of us.' Fred added, pointing between himself and his brother.

'But no one in their right minds would make us captain.' George added fairly.

Angelina laughed and said: 'Alright, I'll go see McGonagall. As soon as we know a date for our first game we'll arrange a few training sessions.'

They all nodded and Angelina quickly left to go and talk with their head of house. It was only just in time; five minutes later that Terry Boot was the first of the other inner circle members to arrive.

Soon enough all the others had arrived as well, and Sirius led them through a secret passage between his office and the actual defence class room. With a flick of his wand all the tables and chairs were pushed against the walls and he gathered all of them in a loose circle. As soon as everybody was paying attention he started: 'Alright kiddo's. You all have been making great progress with both your physical and magical exercises. Now it is time to start working on your duelling routines.'

There were some confused looks and Sirius continued: 'This basically means that you have to find out your best fighting style. For example, in a fight I use a lot of hexes and curses while shielding and dodging the spells that are hurled into my way. Most people work like that, although many purebloods refuse to dodge. Maybe because they consider it too muggle.' There were some chuckles at this. All of them had been dodging spells since their first DA session, and they all knew how effective it could be.

Sirius went on: 'However, there are different styles. You could try to simply overpower your opponent with a few very powerful spells, although if you do that you might exhaust yourself too soon. Misdirection, with magical fog or distracting spells and items could also work great for some of you.' Everybody noticed how his eyes drifted to the twins. 'Some people also like to use transfiguration or charms as their main offensive and defensive options. Both of those spell families offer a lot of variety. For example, Lily likes to conjure large predators to help her, while Dumbledore simply animates everything around the battlefield that's not too big. And when you are as powerful as the headmaster there is not that much that's too big. Other people like to work with very exotic spells because their opponents won't know what to do. Everything can work.'

'How do we know what style works for us?' Neville wanted to know.

Sirius shrugged: 'Trial and error. You already did a lot of duelling with the DA. So maybe you already know what worked well for you? Or maybe you are very good at charms, and want to use that. Although it doesn't always works like that. For example, James is a genius at transfiguration, but he fights in more or less the same style as I do. Still, when he does call upon his transfiguration powers you better run.'

'Then why not use it all the time?' Daphne wondered.

Sirius shrugged again: 'Because it doesn't work for him. To use advanced transfiguration during a fight you need a cool head. James, just like me any many others, fights on adrenaline. You see an enemy? You shoot! You don't waste two seconds on conjuring or transfiguring a lion. Still, others prefer to create that lion… It's not like one style is stronger than the other. It all depends on the situation and the combatants. And it is a good idea to study every style you can think of. Switching styles in the middle of a fight could confuse your opponent and give you a clear edge.'

There was a short silence and then Hermione asked: 'Is there a list of all available styles?'

Sirius chuckled: 'Not really. I think there are some books at the library from famous duelling champions who talk about their preferred style. Professor Flitwick wrote one of them actually. But it's not like there are ten formal styles or something. For example, my style is similar to James' or Alice's, but it's not exactly the same. You have to find out what's best for you. So, tonight, pick a partner and start fighting. And make sure to try and use some tricks that you normally don't use.'

As had been usual for a while now Harry teamed up with Daphne. And they patiently waited while Sirius conjured some debris that they could use during their duels. Small random objects appeared between Harry and Daphne, varying from small bricks and logs of wood to what looked like bicycle parts. After that he conjured a circular wall around them, which would make sure that they could not look at the other fights. As soon as both their wands touched each other the walls would disappear and they could look for new opponents.

Daphne, who was a firm believer of 'there are no rules in real fights', didn't wait for a signal but simply fired a few stunners at Harry as soon as Sirius was gone. Harry had of course had expected this and simply stepped aside. For a while they exchanged simple spells, but then Harry tried to transfigure some of the bricks.

Sadly, the best he could manage was a few raccoons. Daphne snorted, sent bonecrushers at both of them and shouted: 'They are more cute than dange-' She stopped talking when Harry abused her moment of distraction by shooting eight minor hexes and curses in quick succession. Those spell chains really worked nicely! Only the tarantallegra curse did actually hit Daphne tough. And by pure luck it made her dance out of the way of his next few spells until she could cancel it.

After that Daphne decided to get a bit more serious and she somehow conjured a large green snake between them. Harry made a mental note to ask her how she did that before effortlessly banishing the snake right at Daphne. She actually shrieked while diving out of the way and suddenly the snake was gone again. Daphne looked positively livid now though. And Harry swallowed which ruined one of his spell chains. Immediately, she took the minor advantage and he had to dive away for five angry purple curses.

He tried to think of another alternative tactic while dodging a few more spells. It was a shame that he could not transfigure anything dangerous yet. Maybe he could charm the debris somehow? He kept on dodging Daphne's spells and whispered two levitation charms towards two pieces of wood. As soon as both of them hovered a few inches above the ground he followed up with two incendio's to set them afire. Well, actually three of them since his first incendio harmlessly bounced into the floor. Then he quickly banished both flaming logs towards Daphne.

She managed to stop the first one with a well aimed curse, but she had to dive flat to the ground to avoid the other one. And with a well aimed expelliarmus Daphne's wand flew out of her hand. Harry grinned while he caught it. Duels with Daphne were always fun. Daphne seemed a bit less sure about that when she stood up and walked to him. But when she joined up with him she managed a smile and said: 'Congrats Harry. Nicely done with the pieces of wood. I should have thought of that.'

'Maybe next time.' Harry shrugged, 'You are good enough with charms after all. Oh, how did you make that snake? I still can't conjure anything after five lessons with my father.'

'Oh, that's serpensortia. Just move your wand like this.' She moved her own wand in a small circle and a jab. 'Snape teaches it to all second year Slytherins. But I never really use it since you can't control the snake with this spell. It's different from real conjuration in that. Anyway, since Sirius wanted us to try new things… Still, I guess I won't be using this one again. When you flung the thing at me I panicked a bit.'

For a second Harry wondered if he should apologize. But in the end he decided not to. It was all part of the duel. Soon they were joined by Neville and Susan. Who also had finished their duel, with Neville as a winner. Neville and Harry quickly agreed to fight their second duel against each other. They also agreed to make it a pure power match, since the two of them had scored the highest on power during their tests so far. They simply kept shooting and shielding for about ten minutes until Harry finally managed to slam a strong stunner straight through Neville's shield. Both of them needed a few minutes to recover after that fight though. And Harry decided not to trust on his power too much. Beside that, Voldemort was most likely stronger than him anyway.

His third duel, against Terry, took even longer to decide. Terry, as usual, focused on his impressive defensive skills. And it took Harry a long while to finally find a hole in his defence. Today he had added circling pieces of debris to his usual shields and dodges. And Harry used an exploding hex on one of those pieces to finally win the match. It was a shame that Terry's own attacks were almost laughable. But in the right situation he could easily hold three or even more opponents busy with his defence.

In the fourth and last round he had to fight against Fred. Who, next to Harry, was the only one with a full win streak. All the others gathered around Harry and Fred to watch this last duel of the evening. And Sirius decided to play referee. As soon as he whistled a start signal Fred pointed his wand to one of the bricks on the ground. Suddenly, a five by five feet wall appeared and Fred dived behind it. Just avoiding Harry's first spells.

Harry hesitated for a second. In a real fight, he would have used a maxima bombarda curse on the wall. It had made a good impression on him during second year. But it seemed a bit extreme for a friendly duel like this. Before he could decide on another plan the wall, and every other piece of debris, suddenly disappeared. Instead, a large host of colourful and twittering birds appeared. And a second later all of them zoomed towards Harry's head. In a bloody and feathery slaughter he managed to kill about forty with a few exploding hexes. But when he dived away from the remaining birds he jumped straight into a bright red stunner.

The next thing he saw was Sirius' face after he woke up. He grinned to his godfather to show that he was alright and turned to Fred: 'Nice move Fred! You used that one in all your fights?'

'Yep.' Fred merrily answered, before he added: 'Well, beside in my first match. George and I both wanted to use this tactic, so we fought each other in another way.'

'I also won my other two duels with the birds of doom.' George cheerfully added.

'It is a powerful tactic.' Sirius chuckled, 'And you could very well surprise some death eaters with it sometime. However, if people are prepared for it… I think it's easy to block.'

'Like how?' Harry wanted to know. And judging by the expressions of the others he wasn't the only one with that question.

Sirius shrugged: 'A large gust of wind. Even a strong aguamenti could work. Or transfiguring the first bird in a stone wall, although that might be tricky. What were you thinking about at the beginning? I saw you hesitating for a few seconds.'

With a grin Harry replied: 'I was tempted to blow up the wall with a bombarda maxima, but I figured it would ruin the idea of a friendly duel.'

Fred's face lost a bit of colour. But he simply replied: 'Remind me not to try it exactly this way in a real fight.'

Sirius chuckled but didn't answer. Instead it was Hermione who replied: 'How did you manage to transfigure all the birds at once? Or is that something we will learn at transfiguration soon enough?'

'Don't think so.' Alicia dryly replied, 'At least, I've never saw it before.'

'Me neither.' Sirius added with a frown. Then he added: 'Well, I saw some transfiguration masters like Dumbledore, McGonagall and James transfigure several things at once. But James only managed it a few years after Hogwarts.'

Fred and George looked at each other. Eventually it was George who explained: 'We had to do some research for one of our prank items. It didn't work out in the end, but at least we learned this trick.'

'What kind of prank?' Sirius wanted to know, his eyes suddenly wide open with anticipation.

Fred shrugged: 'You know our canary creams?' Sirius impatiently nodded and he continued: 'We were thinking it would be fun if not only the person eating it but also the three or four people closest to him would transform into canaries.'

George took over again: 'We did manage to work out this spell. It takes a bit of concentration, but isn't even that hard. But eventually it turned out that transfiguring another person with a sweet would need a lot of extra power. Smallest two person canary cream we could make was this big.' He held his hands about a feet apart.

With a soft chuckle Fred added: 'And it would only work if you swallowed it in one bite. Which was kind of impossible.'

'Too bad.' Sirius agreed, 'But impressive research.'

'Definitely.' Hermione said with a strange gleam in her eyes. 'Can you teach me how to do it?'

Again Fred and George looked at each other before they shrugged and admitted: 'Guess so.'

Hermione beamed and asked: 'What other things can you transfigure in large numbers?'

'Nothing yet.' George replied. And when Hermione looked surprised Fred added: 'It took a lot of work to even make this spell work. And when we learned that we couldn't even use it we decided not to waste any time on other transfigurations.'

'Oh.' Hermione replied with a confused expression. Most likely she couldn't imagine that anyone would decide to stop researching an interesting new spell.

There were some good natured chuckles at Hermione's reaction. But then Sirius announced: 'It's almost curfew. Time for you guys to head back. See you all in class!'

After a cheerful goodbye Harry and the others went back through the secret passage. After a quick look on Sirius' marauder map, which was pinned to the wall, to check that nobody was in the corridor they all left. Harry, Hermione, Neville and Susan first accompanied Daphne and Tracey towards the Slyhterin common room. Harry sometimes felt like it would be nice to escort Daphne on his own. But there was no way that his friends would allow him to walk back to their own common room on his own. And he wouldn't want Tracey to cross the dark hallways towards the dungeon alone either. Although for tonight he was quite sure that Hermione would have accompanied Tracey no matter what. The two smart girls were debating Fred and George's new spell. Since Susan and Neville were friendly enough to hang back a bit this gave Harry and Daphne a little bit of privacy at least. Although they spent most of it in silence, simply smiling at each other every now and then.

— Four days later —

On Friday they were allowed to leave their potions class a bit earlier because the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students would be arriving soon. Nobody complained, since Snape had been in a foul mood that day. On their way to the front gates Angelina had stopped him and explained that they had to play their first match on next weeks Sunday, only nine days from now. She insisted on two training sessions and claimed his Wednesday and Friday evenings. Harry, and Ron, who had been walking alongside him among the other fourth years, happily agreed. Friday evenings were usually spent with his father, who was trying to teach him some basic conjuration. So far, they had no luck. But Harry knew his father well enough to know that he would allow his son a week of for quidditch training.

Harry and his friends softly discussed the Beauxbatons delegation. They seemed a bit underdressed for the Scottish autumn. Susan wondered aloud if there headmistress, who was of a similar size to Hagrid, also was a bit ignorant of the needs of smaller people. She was the only one of the French group who wasn't shivering.

After Dumbledore assured Madam Maxime that Hagrid would be capable to handle the huge horses that had pulled the Beauxbatons carriage through the sky the large woman quickly led her students into the castle. The Hogwarts students and staff remained outside to wait for the Durmstrang delegation.

After a few minutes some people started to point towards the lake. And soon enough everybody saw a ship with an odd skeletal look rising out of it. Hermione was the first to ask the obvious question: 'How did they ever get into the lake?'

'Subterranean tunnels?' Neville suggested, 'Or maybe they turned the entire ship into a portkey?'

Hermione frowned: 'Can you turn such a huge object into a portkey?' Neville just shrugged, his attention focused on the ship. When Hermione turned to Harry and Susan she received two more shrugs. She sighed and turned in the direction of the Slytherins. More likely than not she wanted to talk with Tracey, but she could hardly walk over right now.

By now figures were dismounting the ship. They seemed much better prepared for the Scottish autumn. All of them were covered in thick fur cloaks. Their headmaster wore a silvery cloak and stepped up to talk with Dumbledore. Harry pretty much ignored the conversation until the Durmstrang headmaster, Karkaroff, turned around and called: 'Viktor, come along, into the warmth… you don't mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold…'

Or, more accurately, he started to pay attention when he heard other people hissing: 'It's Krum!'

Sure enough, when the boy passed Harry he saw a prominent curved nose and thick black eyebrows and easily recognized the world famous seeker of the last quidditch world cup final. For a moment, he felt the same wonder as all the other students that a famous quidditch player like Krum was still attending school. Then something suddenly dawned to him. If Krum was part of the Durmstrang delegation he would most likely play seeker for their team. Which meant that next week Harry would have to fly against the world's most famous seeker! Now he understood why Karkaroff had been so sure that his team would win any game.

_A/N: Finally managed to finish this update. A bit slower than normally, but real life is demanding a lot of my time right now. I'll try to keep updating weekly though. Anyway, Harry is going to play seeker against Krum! Yay! _

_I've been thinking about the next few chapters, and strangely enough I'm still not sure if I want Harry to participate in the triwizard tournament. I can make the story work if he participates or not. So I guess the most important question is if you want to see the tasks from a spectators point of view or from a participants point of view… Let me know what you think;) _


	57. The goblet of fire

**The goblet of fire**

It was the second feast in two days, this time for Halloween. Sadly, the decorations were not as extravagant this year as normally. There were no live bats for example. Harry guessed it had something to do with their foreign guests. However, he felt it was a wasted effort. A while ago he had overheard one of the French girls complaining that Beauxbatons looked much nicer anyway. Or better, Hermione had overheard it and had translated for him. So he figured that live bats would not have changed that view.

It was a shame though. Halloween was normally one of his favourite holidays, and now all attention was focused on the strange artefact in front of the teachers table. The goblet of fire. They had watched earlier today how Fred and George tried to enter and were repelled by the age line. Their beards had looked very funny, and Harry agreed with Ginny when she argued that they should have kept them. Harry had known that their attempt was going to fail when Sirius made no move to intercept them. In fact, he only smiled at them. A sure sign of trouble at the best of times. Let alone when trying to do something not quite allowed.

Their DADA professor was seated at the teachers table, but he seemed half asleep. He had watched the goblet all day and had checked every piece of paper that students brought to it. Officially to make sure that names and schools were spelled correctly. But of course Harry and his friends knew the real reason. Harry had offered Sirius to take over for a few hours, but Sirius had rightly argued that it would look suspicious if a student did something like that. Beside that, there was still a small risk that Harry would be entered by some other way. And if Harry had been guarding the goblet for a while everybody would believe he did it himself. Of course, from what William foresaw that happened anyway. But Harry was sure that no one had been able to slip anything past Sirius.

He stopped his musings when dessert appeared. Treacle tart was much more important after all. At long last, the golden plates returned to their original spotless state. There was a sharp upswing in the level of noise in the Hall, which died away almost instantly as Dumbledore got to his feet. On either side of him, Professor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime looked as tense and expectant as anyone. One of the ministry representatives, the head of the sport division, Ludo Bagman was beaming and winking at various students. The other one, however, looked quite uninterested, almost bored. According to Sirius Mr. Crouch had once been rather famous in the DMLE department, but when his own son was found out to be a death eater he had been 'promoted' to international cooperation.

'Well, the Goblet is almost ready to make is decision,' said Dumbledore. 'I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now, when the champions' names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber' - he indicated the door behind the staff table – 'where they will be receiving their first instructions.'

He took out his wand and gave a great sweeping wave with it; at once, all the candles except those inside the carved pumpkins were extinguished, plunging them all into a state of semi-darkness. The Goblet of Fire now shone more brightly than anything in the whole Hall, the sparkling bright, bluey-whiteness of the flames almost painful on he eyes. Everyone watched, waiting ... a few people kept checking their watches...

The flames inside the Goblet turned suddenly red again. Sparks began to fly from it. Next moment, a tongue of flame shot into the air, a charred piece of parchment fluttered out of it - the whole room gasped. Dumbledore caught the piece of parchment and held it at arm's length, so that he could read it by the light of the flames, which had turned back to blue white.

'The champion for Durmstrang,' he read, in a strong, clear voice, 'will be Viktor Krum.'

'No surprises there!' yelled Ron from a few seats to Harry's left, as a storm of applause and cheering swept the Hall. Harry saw Viktor Krum rise from the Slytherin table, and slouch up towards Dumbledore; he turned right, walked along the staff table, and disappeared through the door into the next chamber. Harry wondered if Krum would still play seeker for next week, and he wasn't sure what he hoped for.

'Bravo, Viktor!' boomed Karkaroff, so loudly that everyone could hear him, even over the applause. 'Knew you had it in you!'

Susan snorted and asked: 'Do you think he would have demanded a re-draw if someone other then Krum was chosen?'

Harry just grinned at her in return. It was rather odd to see such favouritism to a single student. He couldn't see Dumbledore acting like that. The clapping and chatting died down. Now everyone's attention was focused again on the Goblet, which, seconds later, turned red once more. A second piece of parchment shot out of it, propelled by the flames.

'The champion for Beauxbatons,' said Dumbledore, 'is Fleur Delacour!'

A very pretty girl got gracefully to her feet, shook back her sheet of silvery blonde hair and swept up between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. She got almost as much applause and cheers as Krum, although there were a lot of whistles mixed in.

'Oh, look, they're all disappointed,' Hermione said over the noise, nodding towards the remainder of the Beauxbatons party. "Disappointed" was a bit of an understatement, Harry thought. Two of he girls who had not been selected had dissolved into tears, and were sobbing with their heads on their arms.

When Fleur Delacour, too, had vanished into the side chamber, silence fell again, but this time it was a silence so stiff with excitement you could almost taste it. It was time for the Hogwarts champion... Harry hoped it would be Angelina. A few seventh year Gryffindors had entered as well, but since they had never joined the DA he didn't know them that well. He wasn't the only one to cross his fingers.T

The Goblet of Fire turned red once more; sparks showered out of it; the tongue of flame shot high into the air, and from its tip Dumbledore pulled the third piece of parchment.

'The Hogwarts champion,' he called, 'is Cedric Diggory!'

Everybody started to cheer again. But Harry could barely hear his fellow Gryffindors. The uproar from the next table was too great. Every single Hufflepuff had jumped to his or her feet, screaming and stamping, as Cedric made his way past them, grinning broadly, and headed of towards the chamber behind the teachers' table. Indeed, the applause for Cedric went on so long that it was some time before Dumbledore could make himself heard again.

'Excellent!' Dumbledore called happily, as the last tumult died down. 'Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champion every ounce of support you can muster- By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real -'

But Dumbledore suddenly stopped speaking, and it was apparent to everybody what had distracted him. The fire in the Goblet had just turned red again. The air in the room was slowly turning thick with tension, as opposed to the light-hearted humour of a moment ago. Harry felt his own stomach suddenly dropping to his feet. Surely it wouldn't happen? Sparks were flying out of the goblet. A long flame shot suddenly into the air.

Dumbledore turned to it and patiently waited for the flame to disappear again. However, there was no piece of parchment. He turned to the staff table and looked first at Bagman, who looked surprised, and then at Crouch, who looked almost frightened. After a long silence Dumbledore turned back and said: 'I guess the goblet has been gathering too much energy after such a long period without any triwizard tournament.'

Sirius, who had jumped up as soon as the flame shot up now loudly dropped back into his chair and there was some laughter among the house tables. Harry felt quite sure that Sirius felt as relieved as he did right now. He wasn't sure what would be worse if he had been selected… facing his parents or doing three tasks?

Dumbledore patiently waited for the noise to die down again before he continued: 'Now that the champions have been chosen I'll leave you to yourselves. Have fun, and Hufflepuffs, try not to celebrate to long!'

Judging by the cheerful look shared by every single Hufflepuff that wouldn't work out. For a moment Harry felt sorry that no Gryffindor had won, the party would have been epic. But he figured the Puffs were due for a good party. Instead, the Gryffindor common room was filled with talks about the tournament. And especially the seventh years were in the middle of the attention when everybody asked them about Cedric. Apparently he was one of the best students of the year. Harry only knew that Cedric was a very decent seeker, which didn't really help for the tournament. When he pointed that out to Susan she smiled and said that was actually a good thing for Cedric. After all, one of his competitors was Krum. Which made Harry think about next week's match again.

— Six days later —

It was two days before the game against Durmstrang. And after a light dinner the Gryffindor quidditch team had ran to the quidditch field, were Wood was already impatiently waiting for them. He had decided to come to Hogwarts for one training as well. Ron was still with them though, and the chasers would attack each keeper in turn. They had been up in the air within a minute and had been flying for hours now. Angelina had instructed Harry to simply practise his dives and turns. She fully expected Krum to go all out. And warned Harry that he would need every bit of skill to keep up with him. Harry had nodded in agreement. He was determined to make a good fight out of it.

Every now and then he had watched the others. And he was somewhat surprised to see the three chasers girls still working seamlessly together. He wasn't surprised that Fred and George did the same. And Wood seemed to be even better after a few months with Puddlemere United. He felt rather confident that this team was extraordinary good for a house team. Still, he had no idea if it would be good enough for Krum and his team.

Just before the end of their practise his father suddenly showed up and took a seat in the stands. Harry simply waved at him before once more diving straight to the ground. He was sure his dad understood that Harry needed all the training he could get. A few minutes later Wood gathered them all around him and he smiled at them: 'You all were great tonight. If we play like this on Sunday I think we have a decent chance. Remember that the Durmstrang group doesn't have a real quidditch team. I'm sure they brought a player for each spot, but not a full house team that worked together for several seasons like us.' He looked thoughtful and added: 'It's a shame that Krum isn't a chaser. Ah well, make sure to get some rest tomorrow and be ready to play your best on Sunday.'

They all nodded. Even the twins looked determined for a change. Wood turned to each of them in turn for some last advice. To Harry all he managed was: 'Well Harry, just do your best on Sunday. You are a very talented seeker. And with some luck Krum will underestimate you.'

Harry wasn't sure about that. Krum had been visiting their first training and Harry had felt his eyes on him all the time. Still, you never knew what happened during a match. As soon as Wood dismissed them he walked over to his father, who smiled at him and said: 'Hey Harry, nice flying. You're ready for the match then?'

With a shrug he replied: 'Ready as I can be I guess.'

'Good.' His father nodded, 'We asked Dumbledore if we could come and watch the game. But he said it would be unfair to the players from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons.' Before Harry could express his disappointment his father continued: 'So naturally Remus is now warding a piece of land over there.' He vaguely pointed to a patch of ground near the Hufflepuff stands. Harry looked but didn't see the werewolf. Of course, he had not really expected to. 'We will watch from over there, disillusioned and all. But I figured I should tell you why you won't see us during the match.'

Harry nodded and smiled. He always looked for his parents at the start of a match, just to make sure that they were around. It didn't really make sense, since they were not going to help him find the snitch in anyway. But it was reassuring somehow. 'Who is us?' He asked.

'Your mother and I of course.' James immediately replied, 'And Sirius is thinking of joining us instead of the other teachers. And Remus and Tonks will be there as well.'

'Remus and Tonks are still dating then?' Harry asked, knowing full well that the girls would hurt him if he didn't ask. Beside that, he wanted to know it as well.

James grinned: 'That was the second reason that we came to Hogwarts tonight. Sirius and I are trying to talk some sense into Remus.'

'Huh?' Was Harry's eloquent reply.

'Well, your mother thinks that Remus and Tonks are ready to move to the next level. You know, living together, maybe even marriage.' James explained, 'Problem is that Remus is a bit worried that an official relationship with a werewolf might damage Tonks career at the ministry. The fool actually went to Amelia and asked her about it. And she replied that she would never judge Tonks on something like that. However, she had to add that she could not promise that her eventual successor would think the same. I guess it would have been too much to expect her to sugarcoat that.'

Harry grinned. Amelia was always fair, but never one to paint things better than they were. Susan was the same sometimes. Eventually he said: 'I think Tonks doesn't care.'

'No, she doesn't.' James agreed. 'Problem is that Remus does. But between Sirius and me, and Lily and Tonks of course, I'm sure we will be able to set him straight.' He shook his head: 'Speaking of romance, how are you doing? Sirius told me you and Daphne are almost an item now?'

Harry felt his face heating up, but he managed to reply quite calmly: 'I don't really know. I mean, I really like her. And we do a lot of things together now. But I don't really think we are boyfriend and girlfriend already.'

James raised an eyebrow: 'Don't wait too long…' Then he interrupted himself and shook his head: 'I promised your mother not to give you any advice unless you asked. Somehow, she seemed to think you would do better on your own.'

With a laugh Harry replied: 'Well, it did take you six years to get a date with mum.'

'Totally worth it.' James deadpanned.

Harry shook his head: 'Maybe. But if you want to talk about relationships can we move on to another one? Somehow, it weirds me out thinking of you and mum dating.'

James laughed: 'Yeah, I can see that. And actually, there is something else going on at home. Jenny is growing rather fond of Dobby. And he seems to return her feelings.'

'Dobby? Sirius' elf?' Harry asked.

'Yeah.' James agreed, 'Only problem is that Dobby is absolutely devoted to Sirius and his family after they saved him from the Malfoy family. And you know how Jenny thinks about us. So both of them don't want to leave their current family. Lily and I are trying to make Jenny agree on a move. But it's difficult. And we don't want to order her on something like this.'

Harry blinked a few times. He hadn't seen that one coming. Eventually he said: 'Lionfire Hall will be weird without Jenny.'

'Definitely.' Was his father's reply, then he continued: 'Still, it will be better for Jenny and Dobby. And beside that, maybe we can get Timmy to find himself a nice girl as well.'

'Guess so.' Harry replied, 'You know, a while ago Daphne asked me why our elves had such normal names. Her own house elf is called Bonky. I didn't know what to answer.'

'Oh, that's because of my mother.' James replied, and when Harry looked confused he added: 'You know that Timmy and Jenny are brother and sister? And that their parents used to work for our family as well?' Harry nodded, Timmy had once explained that to him. He had been rather proud of it. James continued: 'My mother was a bit of an odd pureblood. She wasn't really into traditions. For example, she was quite upset about the way house elves were treated by the wizarding world. She felt that their names were part of the reason for that treatment. So when Timmy and Jenny were born she asked their parents to pick normal names. They disagreed of course. But in the end they settled on Timmy and Jenny. That's also the reason why our elves speak differently from other elves. She offered them a lot of extra instruction.'

'Ah, I see.' Harry replied, 'Now I know what to tell Daphne if she asks again.'

James grinned, then he suddenly said: 'I just realised, if you and Daphne work out… You'll be the first Potter in generations not to marry a redhead.'

'DAD!' Harry protested, 'I'm not even sure if she wants to be my girlfriend yet and you are already talking about marriage!'

'Sorry.' He didn't really look sorry though. And he cheekily added: 'You and Daphne will do the same when you have kids.'

Harry raised his hands in desperation and said: 'Whatever. I should go get some sleep. Wood is already looking upset that I'm not returning to the common room immediately.'

James grinned again and waved to Wood before he said: 'Right you are. Good luck on Sunday then. We'll make sure to be on time.'

_A/N: Bit of a short chapter, but the best I can do right now;) Most of you seemed to think it would be better to keep Harry out of the tournament, and I felt more or less the same. It's a shame that I can't write about Sirius going totally insane after Harry's name comes out of the goblet though;) Next chapter will be the match against Krum. I'll try to get that one online before 2013, so for now I only say: merry Christmas! _


	58. Harry vs Krum

**Harry vs Krum**

It was the first time in two years that Harry actually felt nervous about the upcoming match. After his first game he had never really been nervous again. But today he would play against Krum. The same Krum that had been elected 'best seeker' during the last world cup. At breakfast, he pretty much ignored the excited discussions around him while pushing his food around his plate. Every now and then he tried to smile to Hermione, Susan or Neville when he spotted their worried glances. But for most of the time he was far away in his own world.

He was interrupted when a soft hand was placed on his shoulder. Looking around he saw the smiling face of Daphne. 'Hey Harry, I just wanted to wish you luck.'

He managed a small smile: 'Thanks Daphne.'

'Nervous?' She wanted to know. And when he only gave a small shrug in reply she continued: 'Well, maybe I can distract you a bit. You know that there is a Hogsmeade weekend in two weeks?'

'I heard about it yeah.' Someone kicked against his shins: 'OW! Eh, I mean… Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me?'

She smiled at him, then winked to Hermione before replying: 'Great!' Then she nodded side wards to the spot where Wood had joined the Gryffindor table for breakfast: 'But your captain is glaring at me. I guess I shouldn't distract you from your food or something. Good luck Harry!'

Harry watched her walk back to the Slytherin table before turning around. His three friends were all looking at him and Neville was the first to speak: 'So, your first real date huh?'

'Yeah.' Harry nodded nervously, 'I do wonder what we are supposed to do all day. But I guess it will work out.'

'Knowing Daphne she already has some plans.' Hermione smiled at him.

Susan turned the discussion back to quidditch: 'I wonder what Wood would do to you if I told him you just kicked his seeker in the shins Hermione.'

Neville laughed but Hermione mock glared at Susan and said: 'You should worry about what I'd do to you if you did that.'

Harry wanted to join the teasing, but before he could say anything he felt another hand on his shoulder. This one much heavier. Once again he turned around, but now he looked into Wood's serious face. 'You ready to go Harry? I want to discuss our plans once more before the game.'

He simply nodded, waved to his friends and followed Wood and his other team mates to the changing room. It was a good thing that as a seeker he was not that important for the team play, because he missed most of Wood's speech due to his nerves. But he managed to appear rather calm at least.

Soon enough, he found himself facing Viktor Krum. The older boy looked as surly as ever, and as far as Harry could see very confident as well. Madam Hooch ordered everybody to shake hands with their opponents and Harry flinched when Krum tried to crush his hand. Still, when the whistle sounded and he mounted his own broom all nerves suddenly disappeared. So did the background noise, he was totally focused on the game now. He soared into the sky, sticking close to Krum, who lazily circled high above the field, for the first few minutes.

Every now and then Krum would look at him, Harry did the same, but tried to focus on looking for the snitch. He needed to spot it first, and then not hurl himself to it but stealthily get closer to gain an advantage on Krum. Suddenly, Harry went into a very steep dive. He pulled every bit of speed out of his firebolt in an almost vertical dive. Somehow, Krum had managed to join into his dive and he was only a foot behind Harry. He kept speeding down recklessly. His mother was going to kill him for this, if he even survived the dive that is. Just before crashing into the ground he gave a mighty pull on his broomstick and it turned upright just in time. He felt his knees and feet touching grass. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Krum had also managed to evade a crash. The Bulgarian was looking at him with raised eyebrows, clearly surprised by Harry's bold move.

They both climbed back up again and half a minute later Harry was following Krum in another mad dive. Of course, it turned out to be Krum's own wronski feint, but he could hardly risk not following the other seeker in a dive like that. What if he had actually seen the snitch? The game went on like that. Either Krum or Harry would start another fake dive, the other would follow and both of them would almost crash before climbing up again.

When Krum started his fourth dive Harry suddenly saw a flicker of gold out of the corner of his eye. He joined Krum's dive for about thirty feet to get some speed and then suddenly hurled himself towards the flicker. It was the snitch! Again, he pushed his broom to its absolute limit. He didn't even dare to look around for Krum, instead he solely focused on the small golden ball. The snitch was slowly flying away from him, which was perfect. He started to reach for it. He couldn't believe it, he was going to win this! His fingers almost touched the snitch and then he had to withdraw his hand from an incoming bludger which would have surely broken his fingers. It took him a few seconds to get his broom under control again and the snitch was gone. He balled his fist in frustration and lost his concentration long enough to hear Lee Jordan's enthusiastic commentary: 'A very near miss for the Gryffindor seeker! It would have been a sensational win. But excellent bludger work from Volchov of course. And the game moves on with 120 points for Gryffindor against 70 for Durmstrang.'

He shook his head and focused on the game again. Looking around he saw that Krum was again circling the field. The older boy had obviously not been allowed Harry's near-catch to distract him. Harry also started a search pattern again, and for a few minutes none of them started another wronski feint. Then Krum suddenly dived again. Harry was somewhat surprised since Krum was halfway across the field and some forty feet above Harry when he started. Soon enough they were hurling down neck by neck again though. Harry frantically looked around and suddenly he spotted the snitch some fifteen feet above the ground. None of them was willing to give an inch, and they kept diving down like maniacs. However, Krum was heavier than Harry, and this worked in his advantage. Ever so slowly he inched away from Harry. Still, Harry kept on his tail, Krum would need to slow down a bit to control his broom well enough to grab the snitch. Maybe that would give him an opportunity.

To his amazement Krum did not slow down though. Instead, he raised a hand while still diving at full speed, grabbed the snitch with it and used his legs and other hand to level his broom only inches above the grass. Harry barely managed to do the same with both his hands. He shook his head, he had been so close! Of course, if anyone had told him before today that he would have been able to get this close to defeating Krum he would have called them insane… but now that he actually had…

Slowly, he circled around to fly to Krum before chaos would engulf the field. He always appreciated it when an opposing seeker made some small talk after the game. So he figured he should do the same after being defeated. On his way he heard Lee shouting the final score, 290 for Durmstrang versus 210 for Gryffindor. Krum was already standing and when Harry touched down next to him he looked at him with a guarded expression.

'Congratulations. Very impressive catch.' Harry commented while gesturing to the snitch, suddenly he was a bit unsure if Krum even knew English.

Krum nodded and replied with a heavy accent: 'Thank you. You flew very vell. I haff not had this much trouble for a long time.'

Harry smiled: 'Thanks! That's a great compliment.'

Again Krum nodded and then he asked: 'How old are you?'

'Fourteen why?'

Krum looked thoughtful for a few seconds. Then he shrugged: 'Ah vell. At least I haff three more easy years before you can enter professional quidditch. I am looking forvard to it.'

Then he offered Harry a hand, which Harry quickly accepted. Their talk was interrupted when the Weasley twins flung themselves around Harry while shouting how proud they were about their 'little Harry'. Shortly after that the other quidditch players and a huge mass of cheering students arrived and it was chaos all around the field. The only thing that Harry remembered from it was Wood pulling him apart and saying: 'Harry! I'm going to make a pensieve memory of this match and show it to the scouts at Puddlemere United. If they don't offer you a contract when you leave Hogwarts I'll send them all to St. Mungo's and have them checked out for spell damage!'

Of course he remembered that. Puddlemere United was his favourite team after all! Now if only Voldemort would be nice enough to surrender himself to the aurors…

- Next Saturday -

'No! I don't want to talk about it!' Harry shouted angrily. 'Yes, I played against Krum. It was a great match, but he caught the snitch before me. That's all I have to say! What's so hard to understand about that?'

The reporter started to ask another question, and Harry quickly pulled Daphne away. However, the reporter followed them. Luckily Harry spotted Fred and George who were just leaving Zonko's joke shop. He gestured to them and waved to the annoying reporter. The twins raised identical eyebrows and looked from Harry to Daphne and back a few times. Then they grinned at the now blushing Harry and suddenly stepped forward to block Harry and Daphne from the reporter. He mouthed a quick 'thank you' to George, who looked around to them while Fred started some far-fetched story about the current political crisis in Madagascar. The reporter kept trying to interrupt him or simply walk past him, but Fred kept on blabbering and together with his twin he effectively blocked the road.

Harry and Daphne quickly ran away and Harry apologized: 'Sorry Daphne, this isn't really turning into a romantic date.'

To his surprise Daphne chuckled: 'Oh, I don't know. At least it's eventful so far.'

Harry snorted. He guessed that avoiding an annoying reporter wasn't something you did every day. He followed Daphne into an unfamiliar side street and when she stopped running he asked: 'Where are we going?'

'Oh, I figured we could use some privacy. I mean, if we go to the Three Broomsticks that reporter will show up again eventually. We can hardly expect Fred and George to keep him occupied all day.' Daphne explained, then she visibly reconsidered: 'Well, maybe we can. But still…'

Harry grinned while trying not to show the sudden nerves he felt when Daphne mentioned privacy. He simply followed her for a while until they arrived in front of a richly decorated building. There was a sign above the door that said: 'The White Horse. Entrance only on invitation.'

He was going to point it out to Daphne, but she simply stepped forward and knocked on the door. Immediately it opened and a house elf dressed in a pillow slope appeared: 'Welcome at the White Horse.'

'Thank you.' Daphne smiled, 'My name is Greengrass.'

Harry wanted to add his own name but the elf already nodded and opened the door. Once inside they were quickly led to a small but cosy room with a burning hearth and a small table. The elf patiently waited for them to sit down and explained: 'You can use the menu to order anything you like. I hope you will enjoy your stay.' Then he disappeared with a small bow. The door seemed to close on it's own accord.

Daphne simply said: 'Two butterbeers please.' And the two drinks were suddenly on the table. Harry took a few seconds to look around the room before he sat down on the small couch opposite Daphne. It all looked rather expensive. There were no windows, but there were a few painting of nice landscapes. Usually, the wizarding world's pictures had moving people in them, but in this room he didn't notice any. He shook his head in wonder and looked at Daphne: 'How did you get an invitation for here?'

Daphne waved her hand: 'I didn't really. The White Horse doesn't actually work on invitations, that's just an excuse. Instead, it has contracts with almost all of the pureblood families. If one of the pureblood daughters wants some privacy during a Hogwarts weekend she can bring up to four people to one of those rooms. My mother showed it to me and Astoria last summer, but this is the first time I've been here since then.'

'Ah.' Harry nodded, wondering why his father had never told him about it. Then he realised something: 'Wait, why only daughters?'

Now Daphne was the one to blush: 'When this building was created some three centuries ago boys were seen as… untrustworthy I guess. It's the same in Hogwarts, you know how the stairs to the girl dormitories are warded but not the other way around?'

Again he nodded. Some of the other boys in his dormitory had already complained that it was unfair, but he never really cared. 'Are you absolutely sure that we can't be overheard here?'

Daphne shrugged: 'According to my mother the building is heavily warded against magical eavesdropping. And those wards are regularly checked by house elves from different families. So yeah, I guess. Although it might still be smart to avoid some topics.'

'Right.' Harry shortly replied. Then he gathered all his courage and asked: 'You know… I've been wondering about something… Regarding the things you learned just before the world cup…' He didn't really trust the wards, but he figured a vague reference like this would be enough for Daphne. 'And well, I mean… shouldn't you be running away from me? Instead of going on a date with me I mean.'

Daphne grimaced in a rather cute way: 'Well, to be honest, part of me would love to do that.'

He nodded once more. It only made sense to him, he would think twice to get attached to someone that was destined to fight an evil dark lord. 'So why don't you?'

Daphne chuckled: 'You really want to know? My parents asked me the same during the summer, do you want the answer I gave to my mother or to my father?'

'You gave different answers?' Harry wondered.

'Of course.' Daphne replied like it was a totally normal thing. Harry tried to remember if he ever made up different answers for each of his parents. He might have done that last week… His mother had been rather upset about his quidditch match. But to be honest he could not think of an excuse that she would have accepted. Daphne continued with an evil smile: 'I'll give you the answer that I gave my mother. It's more embarrasing I think... I told her I liked you ever since you simply accepted Tracey and me in the DA. And after you stood up for us during those first weeks against some of your fellow Gryffindors.'

'But then you didn't know about the pr… well, you know what I mean.' Harry stubbornly continued, while a small voice in his head was shouting to him to stop being an idiot.

Daphne simply shrugged: 'I know. I can't say I'm overjoyed about it. But the world cup made clear that my family is in danger anyway. And now that my father is actively working with your side in the Wizengamot that danger will only increase. And beside that… I think you really stand a good chance. The way that your parents and their friends are preparing… and simply watching you during the DA. I mean, I can tell you are only using half of your power while fighting against me.'

'That's not true!' He immediately protested.

She simply shook her head: 'Yes it is. I'm not saying that you are trying to be gentle or something like that. But you just don't have it in you to unleash your full power against me or one of the others. You have to much of a sense for fair play I guess, common Gryffindor weakness.' She added a smile to take the sting out of her words, then she continued: 'I see it all the time, you only start wielding more power when your opponent starts bringing more power.'

Harry looked confused: 'That's not true. Neville lasts a lot longer against me than everybody else.'

Daphne shrugged: 'Well, Neville is a lot stronger than most of the others. And a good fighter anyway. He once defeated me in thirty seconds while our duels do usually last a few minutes. Not that I'm complaining, I do learn a lot more this way.'

He frowned: 'Are you saying that I should be able to defeat you in thirty seconds?'

After a short hesitation Daphne said: 'In a way… yes. I think if you use your full power and your duelling skills I shouldn't stand a chance against you. I'm not asking you to simply crush me during the next DA session though, as I said… I learn a lot.'

'Me too.' Harry sincerely replied, 'That's why I'm not sure if you're right. You're stronger than you think.'

Daphne snorted but was polite enough to try to change it into a smile. 'My mother once explained a muggle saying to me. Something about a black kettle or so, I can't really remember. Anyway, never mind. If you feel comfortable duelling like this just keep going. But if you ever face you-know-who you will have to act differently.'

With a grave nod he agreed: 'Yeah I guess. But after Christmas I'm going to start sparring with Sirius on a regular basis. And I'm still working on my conjuration to improve my magical core.'

'How's that coming along anyway?' Daphne wanted to know.

'Not sure.' Harry shrugged, 'It's really complicated. I managed to conjure a few things, but when I tried to conjure a brick I got a stone this small-' He held his fingers about an inch apart, 'and when I wanted an iron nail I got a foot long tube of iron. It's taxing enough at least. Most Friday evenings have me exhausted. I actually had only half a session yesterday, dad told me I should be awake today.'

'He has a point.' Daphne smiled, before she shook her head: 'It's amazing that you can do all those things. I can't even manage a full patronus yet.' She noticed Harry's questioning look and added: 'I know the theory from the DA of course. I just don't get anything more than grey fog most of the time. I guess I'm not powerful enough or so.'

'You should be.' Harry frowned. Then he looked around and asked: 'Think we can do magic in here?'

'You're going to teach me a spell on our first date?' Daphne wondered.

With a shrug he replied: 'Beats talking about Voldemort I think. And it won't take that long.'

She laughed: 'You have a point there. And yes, we can use magic here. But before you distract me too much… I told you already, so I think you should tell me when you did first notice me? As a somewhat special girl I mean.'

He took a few seconds to think about his answer. Eventually he said: 'I always thought you were nice… But I think you started to stand out to me when we talked in the hospital wing. You know, when Tracey was petrified. And after the first Hogsmeade weekend I started to wonder about maybe dating you… To be honest, if you hadn't mentioned this weekend last week it might have taken me a lot more time to actually ask you out.'

'And if Hermione hadn't kicked you under the table.' Daphne dryly added.

'Noticed that, didn't you?' Harry replied just as dryly. 'Why don't you focus on that happy thought while trying to summon a patronus?'

Of course, it didn't work. It wasn't that much of a happy thought after all. But she still got some fog and Harry ensured her that was a good sign. He had no clue if it actually was a good sign, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to call it so. For a while he kept asking her to recall better memories, but in the end he simply resorted to casting a cheering charm on Daphne while she summoned her patronus. It worked great, and a graceful silvery horse was galloping around the room. It wasn't a perfect solution, but Harry hoped that the spell would become easier for Daphne after she knew that she could do it.

Eventually they decided that they had done enough spellcasting and they returned to the table. This time, Daphne chose to sit down next to Harry instead of on the other side of the table. For a while longer they kept chatting about all kind of things. Other students, teachers and school in general, last week's quidditch match and even the wizengamot was discussed. Harry was surprised when Daphne announced that it was time to go back to the castle. Time had really flew by.

_A/N:I fully expected to write a full chapter about the quidditch game, but in the end I had to add Harry's first real date to get an acceptable length. Not that it really matters of course, although I guess I could have edited the name of the chapter :) Not the best Harry/Daphne scene I ever wrote I think, but some of it had to happen. And first dates are not supposed to run smoothly, right?;) Anyway, happy new year to everybody!_


	59. The first task

**The first task**

It was Monday evening and once again Harry and the others gathered at Sirius' office. Usually, Sirius would open the secret passage between his office and the defence classroom as soon as everybody had arrived. But this time he took a long piece of rope out of his desk and said: 'Today we're going on a little excursion. If anyone asks, we have of course never left Hogwarts.' He winked and continued: 'The headmaster might get upset if we actually use the portkey he made for me.'

There were some chuckles at this, but most people wanted to know where they were going to. However, Sirius didn't answer but simply started to spread the rope around. As soon as everybody had a hand on the rope he said: 'Portus.' And with the familiar tug behind his navel Harry and the others spun away.

It took him a few minutes to recognize their destination as the quidditch field of Lionfire Hall. All kind of debris covered the ground, mostly small stones. Four huge floating lights in every corner created good visibility in the dark night. It reminded him of the time that Hermione's father had invited the other men (and boys) to a football match some six years ago. The football stadium also had big lights on every corner. He had enjoyed the atmosphere, but preferred quidditch anyway. Sirius was looking around and commented: 'Seems we are a bit early.'

'Early for what?' Hermione wanted to know.

'For tonight's training of course.' Sirius replied rather vaguely, but before Hermione could object he pointed to the far side and said: 'Ah, here they come.'

Harry turned around and saw his parents, Remus and Tonks walking into their direction. Beside Tonks, all of them were wearing their basilisk suits. Tonks didn't have one so far, but a few weeks ago Sirius had mentioned how he and James had purchased some extra basilisk hide to get a suit for her. She was getting more and more involved with the group now that her relationship with Remus was growing stronger all the time. Thankfully his parents didn't pay too much attention to him. His mother had done that once during the first summer camp and Harry had felt embarrassed the rest of the week. Of course, he wouldn't mind talking with them a bit tonight, especially his mother since he hadn't seen her for a while, but he was happy that didn't make a big deal out of it. Sirius waited for the others to join him before he said: 'Alright kiddo's, until now you have been mostly practising against each other. I thought it would be a fun challenge to fight against adults tonight.'

'You mean one on one?' Katie asked, clearly not too happy about the idea.

Sirius grinned: 'Nah, not yet. For now it will be the sixteen of you against the five of us. If it turns out too easy or too hard we'll change the numbers next time around.'

Remus, who looked very dangerous in his own basilisk suit, took over: 'Since this is a surprise for all of you we will give you some time to make up a tactic and think about your first spell. As soon as we see a spell flying the five of us will attack.'

Lily was the next to speak: 'Also, we invented a new spell. James?' She waited for James to move forward a few steps before she shot a bright green spell towards him. As soon as it touched James he was covered in blue paint. Lily chuckled while most of the students laughed. Then she waved her wand again and the blue paint disappeared while she explained: 'The green spell you saw is exactly the same colour as the killing curse. As you might know, the killing curse can't be shielded. We want you to treat this spell as a real killing curse, so block it with solid objects or dodge it when it comes your way. If you block it with a shield you're out of the game. Of course, if you're covered in blue paint you're out as well. Clear?'

'Can we use it as well?' Hermione wanted to know when nobody had any questions.

Lily shook her head: 'No. In a real fight you're not allowed to use the unforgivable curses, they can land you in Azkaban for life. But the death eaters throw them around all the time, so we figured it made sense to get you accustomed to the green beams.'

'If it is a matter of life or death you should use an unforgivable of course.' James added, 'Most aurors won't report you if it's a life and death situation.' Next to him Tonks nodded, 'But usually the same results can be achieved with normal spells anyway. It might sound funny, but a tickling charm can be just as effective in keeping your opponent busy as a crucio. Especially because you need a serious amount of hate for a good crucio.'

Sirius looked around and when nobody spoke up he said: 'Good, if everything is clear the lot of you can discuss your plans. As Remus said, we will only start attacking after we see the first spell. Or after thirty minutes if nothing happens before then. Forty-five minutes after the start a horn will signal the end of the practise.'

The teenagers didn't waste time but immediately gathered in a circle. Harry felt somewhat surprised when he was forced into the middle. But after a few seconds he tapped his wand to his chest to make his basilisk armour visible. He waited a few seconds when most others copied his move and said: 'Right, let's show them what we can do. We never really fought as a sixteen men team yet, any ideas?'

Surprisingly it was Ron who spoke up first: 'You are our strongest fighter, I think you should go on full attack to try and take somebody out while a few others defend you.'

There were a lot of nods at that. Harry felt a bit upset by the idea of claiming the 'glory' for himself, but then he reasoned that it wasn't much different from quidditch. The seeker and chasers scored the points, but beaters and keepers were just as important. So eventually he nodded as well: 'Good, Terry, if you don't mind I want you to be one of my defenders.'

'Of course.' The Ravenclaw nodded. Harry grinned, Terry's defence was impressive, his attack was mediocre at best though, but a role like this was perfect for him. Then he frowned: 'Who else wants to protect me?'

'I will.' Daphne immediately replied, and he smiled at her. Next Hannah spoke up: 'Maybe I should stick with you as well? I guess it makes sense to have the healer near the strongest fighter.'

'Right.' Harry nodded, 'And if we start in the centre you can always try and run to somebody else if necessary.'

'This way we have four people focusing on one of the adults though.' Hermione cautioned, 'Wouldn't it make more sense to make five groups of three with one reserve?'

There were a few murmured agreements at this, but some others seemed to disagree. Eventually it was Neville who said: 'I say we make two other groups of five for the flanks, they can try to keep two enemies busy while Harry finished his opponent. That way we have two reserves to jump in where they can.'

'Katie should be one of those reserves. She can try to snipe a bit.' Harry suggested, and when Katie nodded he continued: 'Maybe you can join her Hermione? You know a lot of odd spells and you might be able to use a few funny ones from back there.' Hermione looked like she wanted to argue, but eventually she said: 'Right. So what about the two flanks?'

Harry quickly looked over the others. Eventually he said: 'Neville and Susan command the left flank, joined by Fred, George and Ginny. Ron and Alicia command the right. And of course that leaves Luna, Tracey and Justin to join them.'

Nobody objected and Neville said: 'Seems about right, so we'll try to keep two opponents on our flanks so your group can take down a single opponent Harry?'

Harry nodded: 'Yeah, so now we just need to think of our first spell. Any suggestions?'

'Actually, I have an idea.' Hermione replied. She pointed to Tracey: 'Tracey and I worked on Fred and George's canary swarm. You know? The spell they used during our first duel training?'

Everybody made agreeing noises and Hermione continued: 'Well, they invented a way to multiply the results of the avis charm. So instead of summoning five or six birds they got fifty to sixty with one spell. We found a way to multiply the multiplier, it takes about a minute to cast, so in normal situations it's hardly useful. But since they gave us first shot… It will give us some five to six hundred birds if I use the spell.'

There were some impressed whistles, and Fred and George excitedly walked to Hermione to ask her a few things. Harry quickly interrupted them: 'That's great Hermione, Tracey. But I guess it's a difficult spell which we can't learn in ten minutes?'

Hermione shrugged: 'Tracey and I can do it. And since the twins already know their own trick I'm sure we can teach it to them in a few minutes.'

'Two thousand birds. Now that's a distraction.' Susan dryly commented.

Harry wasn't the only one to chuckle at that. Eventually he said: 'Well, the four of you can start the fight with that spell. Just make sure to run to your positions after you're done.'

'Ay, ay, captain!' Fred replied with a slobbery salute.

Harry only shook his head and walked to the centre of the field. Daphne, Hannah and Terry followed him. As soon as they all arrived they gathered in a small circle and started to discuss their plans. Harry started: 'We'll have a few seconds at least while they find a way to destroy several thousand birds. I'm thinking that the three of you should focus on transfiguring animals out of all the debris until you need to defend me. Even a bunch of squirrels can be a distraction.' He had seen his mother transfiguring leopards in a duel, but he figured that was a bit too much to ask. He himself still had trouble enough to transfigure raccoons.

'We shouldn't transfigure all the stones though.' Terry softly warned, 'We can use the fragments to block those blue paint curses.'

'Good one Terry.' Harry agreed.

Daphne spoke up next: 'I think Terry and I should both protect one side of Harry. Hannah can try to tackle everything that gets past our defence, or try to heal whoever needs it. Although I don't really expect your parents to use such dangerous spells.'

Hannah, who had been looking to the spot where the twins, Hermione and Tracey were working, nodded: 'I can also enervate stunned people, or remove other hexes and curses though. Anyway, I think they're starting.'

Harry didn't look back but focused on the other side of the field where his parents, Sirius, Remus and Tonks were now spreading out. He gulped when he saw his mother taking the central position. This was going to be tough. 'Tell me when the birds appear Hannah.'

Only a second later she shouted: 'Birds!'

He didn't waste a seconds but immediately started to fire spells towards his mother. The distance was a bit too much for real accuracy, but it would at least keep her occupied. All kind of small animals appeared in front of him when suddenly hundreds of colourful twittering birds flew over his head. He heard his father shouting: 'Firewall!'

And sure enough, a few seconds later a huge wall of fire erupted right in front of the swarm of birds. Harry winced when the smell of burned birds reached him. After a few seconds he stopped firing spells, since he couldn't see his mother anymore through the firewall. Instead, he transfigured three raccoons to join the zoo of small critters in front of him.

As soon as the firewall disappeared he saw five huge brown and grey wolves galloping towards him. His mother followed just behind him and he tried to ignore the wolves while raining down spells on her. He mainly mixed stunners and disarming spells because he had worked out how to cast them in quick succession, every now and then he would use another hex. His mother easily dodged or blocked all his spells though, and slowly marched closer. Meanwhile two of her wolves were swarmed by raccoons, squirrels, cats and even a few rats and mice. Two of the others were crushed by Daphne's bonebreakers and Terry took down the last one with a cutting curse. They also blocked every single spell that his mother still managed to fire despite his own rain of spellfire.

Out of the corners of his eyes he saw furious battles raging on his left and right sides. On his left Neville, Susan, the twins and Ginny were in a full scale battle with James and Sirius. Spells were flying all over the place. With two prankers on each side every now and then a colourful and loud explosion tried to distract the opposing side. Of course, it never worked, but Harry figured they all liked explosions to much. On his right side Remus and Tonks were slowly advancing, they kept transfiguring stone walls to cover behind and mainly used the blue paint spells. Ron had his team slowly falling back, although he made sure to stay in connection with Terry.

He couldn't pay too much attention to the other teams though. Instead he kept firing spells towards his mother at an insane rate. But she was more than up to the challenge and kept both Daphne and Terry occupied with her return fire. Suddenly he saw Padfoot running behind his mother's back. He frowned and quickly looked to his right were a huge cloud of fog was obscuring the battlefield. Curses were flying out and into it, and Harry wondered if Neville and the others had even noticed Sirius' disappearance.

He kept firing spells, but tried to see what Padfoot was doing. He kept on running to the other side before turning back into his normal form and fired three green beams in quick succession. Only then did Harry notice that Ron's group had lured Remus and Tonks surrounded in a circle. The two were fighting back to back but were visibly tiring under the onslaught from five sides. However, Ron and the others clearly didn't expect to be attacked from behind. And Justin was suddenly covered in blue paint before Ron shouted some orders and the four remaining fighters formed a loose line again.

Sirius immediately transformed to Padfoot again and ran back to the other side, where the fog was just starting to clear. Harry tried to stun the dog, but his mother swiped her wand and created a long low shield to protect him. He grumbled: 'Hannah! Come help me out here!'

Hannah jumped next to him and joined in his attack. It was clear to see that she hadn't used too much energy so far. And slowly his mother had to focus more and more on defence. Soon Terry and Daphne also joined in with some offensive spells and now Lily was on full defence. Still, between conjuring large stone walls and sturdy magical shields, combined with some expert dodging she managed to last about five minutes. Then one of Harry's stunners finally took her down. He quickly summoned her wand to make sure she wouldn't join the fight again after a simple enervate.

Next he looked around. On his right side Alicia was also covered in blue paint, but Hermione had joined the team. And right now Tonks was stumbling around in clothes that were suddenly much too big for her. On the left flank both the twins were already out and replaced by Katie. He saw Ginny falling to another of the paint spells and quickly made a decision: 'Let's help Neville, try to overwhelm them!'

The four of them joined the fight and soon Sirius and James were forced on the defensive. However, it was clear to see that the two men had often fought together. They quickly changed between attacking and defending each other if necessary. Even with seven against two, they didn't manage to defeat them. And it was only because of Hannah's quick work that Terry kept on fighting until the horn sounded.

Panting, Harry looked behind him and saw that Tonks was still fighting against Hermione, Luna and Tracey. All others were down. Either stunned, bound or covered in blue paint. Some enervates, finites and scourgifies later got everybody back up though. And once again they gathered in a loose circle. Harry first walked over to his mother to return her wand. She smiled at him: 'Thanks Harry. And you did very well, I'm impressed.'

Harry shrugged self-consciously: 'I don't know. Even with Daphne, Terry and Hannah helping me it still took a lot of time to get you.'

'Yes, but I've been practising for years.' Lily replied, 'Of course, Voldemort and maybe some of the top death eaters are still stronger than me, but I think they all will be unpleasantly surprised when fighting you.'

He could only smile at that: 'Still, I hope they'll give me a few more years.'

'Oh, so do I.' His mother fervently agreed. 'Anyway, let's join the others.'

They did so and Sirius chuckled: 'Now that our slowpokes have joined us… What do you guys think?'

Nobody replied and in the end it was Harry who said: 'I counted five people covered in blue paint. That's way too much. But I think we did reasonably well for our first try.'

'I agree. On both counts.' Sirius nodded, 'I think encircling Remus and Tonks was your only major mistake. Or at least, not protecting your backs while doing that.'

'Yeah, I figured so…' Ron agreed, 'But I was looking at the three of you and figured you were all way too busy to come to us. Guess that was a mistake.'

'In general, you should make sure that your back is safe.' James advised, 'I thought it rather smart that Hermione and Katie were guarding you.'

'Well, we were more of a reserve.' Hermione replied, 'And we tried to bother the five of you from a distance, not sure if that really worked.'

'Oh it did.' Remus replied, 'Katie's spells nearly got me a few times. It's hard to focus on a distant attacker like that when you are fighting with several others on close range. And your transfigured animals were a pain as well. I wondered why you didn't summon another flock of birds?'

Hermione frowned: 'I was disappointed when you took them out so easily. And I couldn't cast them again during the fight. The spell takes about a minute, and I didn't have the time.'

'How did you do it any-' Remus started, but Tonks quickly interrupted him: 'Oh no! Don't get him started on spell mechanics! It will take all night! Instead, who enlarged my clothes? I thought it was a brilliant move, took me several minutes to get everything back in order and it's hard to defend against a transfiguration spell. I wonder if shrinking clothes wouldn't be more effective though.'

'I did.' Luna dreamily replied, 'You were the only one not in a basilisk suit. And I didn't shrink your clothes because I had a few teenage boys in my team. And you are rather attractive you know. They would only get distracted.'

There were some blushes, a few chuckles and a lot of loud laughs at that. Eventually Sirius stopped his barking laughter and said: 'Well, I think we learned some valuable lessons tonight. From now on we will come here every second week, our hosts will prepare another battlefield each time. And we might just shuffle the groups a bit when we feel like it. So for the next two weeks you guys can think about your teamwork, and next week we'll practise a bit more at Hogwarts.'

'Cool!' Susan replied, before looking at her watch: 'Wait, you mean we're done already? It's only 9:30.'

'Yeah. But tomorrow's the first task.' James said, 'And we're paranoid.'

There were some confused looks at this and Remus explained: 'We're somewhat nervous that Voldemort might try to do something around one of the tasks. We do not have any proof, but after his death eaters made an appearance at the quidditch world cup…'

'So don't be nervous, most likely nothing is going to happen.' Lily concluded, 'But nonetheless we would be comforted if you guys were all well rested. And Remus, James and I will be close to Hogwarts together with Neville's parents. Just in case.'

- The next day -

Harry wondered if he was the only one who had been struggling to fall asleep last night. He didn't really expect Voldemort to show up today. But the idea, combined with the adrenaline from the big fight at home had kept him awake until well past midnight. It was a good thing that lessons stopped at midday, now he felt at least reasonably fresh when they walked to the stands which had been constructed near the Forbidden Forest. The four of them were accompanied by Daphne and Tracey, who had also joined them for lunch. They usually shared at least one meal a day with the Gryffindors now. Harry had offered a few times to come sit at the Slytherin table, but Tracey argued that some of the upper year Slytherins would cause problems.

He had noticed that Alicia and Katie were walking together with the four Weasleys just in front of them. And Hermione pointed out that the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws of the inner circle had also made a group of four. It was just another precaution. Although Harry had the feeling that the members of the inner circle were growing closer all the time. So maybe they would have formed groups anyway.

They found a nice spot on the left most stand and patiently waited for the task to begin. Ludo Bagman, the head of the ministries sport department, was commenting. But Harry and his friends barely listened to his introduction. Instead, they watched to a group of ten wizards who were escorting a dragon to the arena. After some shocked cries of 'Dragon!' Hermione identified the silvery-blue horned dragon as a Swedish Short-Snout. The creature seemed to be short tempered as well, if the way it was snapping and snarling at the accompanying wizards was an indication. It calmed down a bit when it reached a clutter of eggs just in front of them, one of them was bright gold.

'They have to fight a dragon? Man, am I glad that I didn't have to compete.' Harry sighed.

'No, they only have to pick up the golden egg.' Hermione corrected, unsurprisingly she had been paying attention to Bagman.

'Oh, that's easy then.' Susan snorted.

'Positively, hardly worth interrupting lunch for.' Daphne dryly added.

Neville chuckled: 'To be honest, I was expecting some boring task. But this is going to be spectacular. I hope Cedric and the other champions will be okay though.'

'Looks like the dragon handlers are staying behind. I guess they will interfere if needed.' Susan pointed out. Harry looked at the dragon handlers and wondered how on earth they would be able to help if the dragon charged. Still, he couldn't imagine Dumbledore allowing the champions to risk life and limb. So he guessed they had a backup plan.

Ludo Bagman shouted: 'And here is our first champion! From Hogwarts, Cedric Diggory!'

Sure enough Cedric had entered the arena from the other side. He was now rather nervously looking towards the dragon, who coolly gazed back at him. For a second Harry wondered why the dragon didn't care for the brightly coloured and noisy stands, he guessed there was a ward involved. Cedric visibly needed a few moments to gather his courage, Harry couldn't blame him there. But eventually the Hogwarts champion pointed his wand to a single rock and transfigured it into a big black labrador.

For a few seconds nothing happened, but then the dog charged towards the dragon, barking madly. Harry snorted when he had to compare the labrador to Padfoot for a few seconds. The dragon kept staring at Cedric for a while, but when the boy didn't move it turned its attention to the dog. Immediately, the much smaller animal jumped aside and barely avoided a jet of flame. Frustrated, the dragon roared. Which drew a loud cheer from the stands. The dog kept running and jumping, and Harry only noticed that Cedric was running towards the eggs when he was halfway there. He pointed it out to Daphne, who gasped: 'Oh Merlin! I hope he makes it.'

Cedric did manage to collect the egg. But on his way back the dragon noticed him and shot a jet of flame to him. He barely avoided the main blast, but he obviously got burnt and had to limp the next few steps. It was pure luck that the dragon had looked down, noticed that all her normal eggs were still there and had immediately calmed down.

There was a huge cheer when Cedric held the egg above himself in victory. Then all eyes focused on the judges. Cedric received one nine, two eights, a seven and a six. Thirty-eight out of a maximum of fifty points in total. More cheers accompanied Cedric to the small hospital tent, were madam Pomfrey was nervously pacing.

However, Harry and his friends focused on the dragon handlers again. They were leading the Swedish Snort-Shout away from the arena. And for a few moments Harry wondered if the dragon needed to take a break between champions. He soon realized his mistake when another group of dragon handlers returned with another dragon. This one was green and Hermione named it a Common Welsh Green. Then she echoed Harry's thoughts: 'I wonder why they brought more than one dragon? It's not likely that one of the champions actually hurts their dragon that much that it can't guard another golden egg?'

'Maybe they were afraid that the dragon would get angry after one or two attempts.' Tracey suggested.

'Angrier, you mean.' Neville commented when the green dragon stamped the ground a few times.

'Good point.' Tracey chuckled.

They all joined the cheers when Fleur entered the arena. She somehow seemed less nervous then Cedric, maybe because she had a bit more time to prepare in the champion's tent? Again, the dragon focused on the champion like she was the only living being around. Oddly enough Fleur started a sort of… not really a dance, but she moved around rather graceful for a few minutes. Someone on the row behind Harry commented: 'Aww, why can't she do that in front of us? Even from here it looks hot.'

Harry silently agreed with the unknown speaker, but was wise enough not to comment it while sitting next to his girlfriend. He did wonder what Fleur was trying to achieve though. Until Susan said: 'She's doing something with her wand as well. But I don't understand what.'

'Whatever it is, it seems to be working.' Daphne added. Harry turned to her and saw that she was looking at the dragon instead of to Fleur. He followed her gaze and saw that the dragon's long neck was slowly lowering. Its eyes were half closed as well. Soon enough its head was on the ground and its eyes fully closed.

'How on earth did she manage that?' Hermione wondered, 'All the books say dragons are very resistant to spells.'

Harry shrugged, he had no idea. And judging by the surprised reactions around him nobody knew for sure. Fleur was running towards the dragon now. She picked up the egg, turned around and ran back. Just at the moment that she passed the dragon's head again the huge beast snored. And a small jet of flame put Fleur's skirt on fire. She never stopped running, but summoned a jet of water to stop the fire from doing serious harm. This earned her a lot of wolf whistles from the crowd.

Again there was a huge cheer when Fleur raised the egg above her head. Susan excitedly shouted: 'I say full points! That was amazing!'

'Her skirt caught fire though.' Neville cautioned, 'But that was definitely better than Cedric.'

Sure enough, Fleur got two nines and two eights. But then Karkaroff, the Durmstrang Headmaster, only gave her a five. Outrageous roars and boos from the crowd didn't influence the result, and Fleur finished only one point ahead of Cedric.

There was a lot of angry murmuring at the stands, but it died down when the next dragon was brought into the arena. This one was bright red with an odd fringe of gold spikes around its head. Again Hermione knew what race it was, a Chinese Fireball. As if to explain its name the angry dragon shot a few mushroom shaped fireballs around the arena before Krum even showed up.

When the Durmstrang champion did show up he coolly looked at the dragon's antics for a few seconds. Then he suddenly pointed his wand to the dragon and bellowed a few curses. All three curses went straight for the eyes of the dragon, and apparently they did something. The dragon started to jump and stamp around in a kind of angry pained dance. Harry winced when several eggs were crushed under the dragon's large clawed feet. Krum seemed not to care, he was simply running forward, claimed the egg and ran back. It all happened ridiculously fast and it took the stands a few seconds before they realised that they had to cheer.

'I wonder if they will deduct points for the eggs?' Neville wondered, 'Beside that, it was definitely effective.

Apparently the judges did. Krum got two sevens and two eights, then Karkaroff decided to shed away all shreds of impartiality and awarded his champion a ten. Harry looked at Krum to see how he reacted to the angry jeers, but he seemed not to care. He guessed the international quidditch star was used to angry crowds. Still, from his short talk with Krum after their quidditch match Harry wondered if the Bulgarian would actually like receiving such an unfair score.

He fully agreed with Susan when she summarized the task: 'That was awesome! I can't wait for the second task!'

_A/N: Finally got to the first task. I tried to use the rather vague descriptions about the other champions from the book. But Ron only used about one sentence for each of them, so I had to improvise a bit. Hope you liked it:)_


	60. The Yule Ball

**The Yule Ball**

'Thomas! Weasley! Will you pay attention?'

Professor McGonagall's irritated voice cracked through the transfiguration class on Thursday, and Dean and Ron both jumped and looked up. It was the end of the lesson; they had been changing guinea-fowl into guinea-pigs. The animals were all gathered in a cage on McGonagall's desk and the bell was due to ring on any moment. Ron and Dean had been fooling around during half the class, and had finished by having a sword fight with a few of Fred and George's fake wands. Ron was now holding a tin parrot, and Dean a rubber haddock. Harry was not the only one that was grinning at the two; he might have been the only one that had seriously considered joining them during the lesson though. Transfiguration had lost a bit of his challenge since he started his conjuring classes with his father. Changing guinea-fowl into guinea-pigs was easy when you compared it to conjuring a table. Still, between his respect for McGonagall and the disapproving reactions he knew he would receive from Susan and mainly Hermione he decided to stay focused on his classes.

'Now Thomas and Weasley have been kind enough to act their age.' Said professor McGonagall with an angry look at the pair whose fake wands were now slowly falling apart. 'I have something to say to you all. The Yule Ball is approaching - a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and an opportunity for us to socialise with out foreign guests. Now, the ball will be open only to fourth-years and above - although you may invite a younger student if you wish.'

Lavender Brown let out a shrill giggle. Parvati Patil nudged her hard in the ribs, her face working furiously as she, too, fought not to giggle. Professor McGonagall ignored them: 'Dress robes will be worn,' She continued, 'and the ball will start at eight o'clock on Christmas Day, finishing at midnight, in the Great Hall. Now then-'

Professor McGonagall started deliberately around the class. 'The Yule Ball is of course a chance for us all to - er - let our hair down,' she said, in a disapproving voice. Lavender giggled harder than ever, with her hand pressed hard against her mouth to stifle the sound. Harry could see what was funny this time: Professor McGonagall, with her hair in a tight bun, looked as though she had never let her hair down in any sense.

'But that does NOT mean,' Professor McGonagall went on, 'that we will be relaxing the standards of behaviour we expect from Hogwarts students. I will be most seriously displeased if a Gryffindor student embarrasses the school in any way.'

The bell rang, and there was the usual scuffle of activity as everyone packed their bags and swung them onto their shoulders. Harry and Neville followed Hermione and Susan out of the classroom. The two girls were already debating about something. As soon as they reached a quiet corridor they turned around to Harry and Neville and Hermione said: 'We think you two should ask Daphne and Tracey. There aren't that many nice Slytherin boys in fourth-year and above.'

Before Harry could reply Neville chuckled: 'You mean you want me to ask Tracey. After all, Harry is going to invite Daphne anyway. Right Harry?'

Harry simply nodded and Hermione grimaced: 'Fine then, I would like it if you could ask Tracey. Unless you were thinking of inviting someone else of course?'

Neville hesitated a few seconds. Then he said: 'No, not really. I was thinking of inviting Susan since I think many people won't even dare to ask the ward of their DADA-teacher to the ball. But I'll ask Tracey if that's what you want.'

Susan blinked: 'Why didn't I think of that? No one is ever going to ask me! I wouldn't be surprised if Sirius is already threatening students!'

'You're also the niece of the woman who might very well replace Fudge as minister. That alone should get you some invitations.' Hermione tried to reassure her.

'Gee, thanks.' Susan mumbled.

'What Hermione means is that you are a very pretty and very nice girl Susan.' Harry smiled, 'If Daphne doesn't want to go with me I'll invite you.'

'Like that's ever going to happen.' Susan complained, but she looked a bit happier when they started to walk towards the great hall for lunch again.

- The next morning -

Harry looked up when Daphne and Tracey joined them for breakfast. He quickly swallowed his bacon away and said: 'Hey Daphne. Do you want to go to the Yule Ball with me?'

She looked at him in surprise, shook her head but said: 'Sure. I would love to.'

He noticed her somewhat unhappy expression and the bemused expressions of Susan and Hermione and asked: 'What, did I do something wrong?'

Tracey snorted: 'I think she expected a bit more of a romantic question.'

Next to her Neville nodded and said: 'Yeah, something like this.' He turned to Tracey, fell down on one knee and said: 'Oh Tracey, you are by far the most beautiful girl in Hogwarts. Would you please do me the great honour of accompanying me to the Yule Ball? Please say yes and I will treasure the memory forever.'

Everybody looked at him in shock. But Tracey totally ignored him and said: 'That would have been much better Harry. Isn't that right Daphne?'

Daphne snorted: 'I'm not sure. At least I immediately understood that I was asked.'

'What?' Tracey frowned, and then she turned to Neville who was still seated on one knee. 'Wait, you were serious?'

Neville shrugged: 'I might have exaggerated a bit to explain things to Harry. But I was asking you to go to the ball with me yeah.'

'Oh well.' Tracey blushed before she replied: 'Of course I'll go with you.'

'You guys work fast.' Dean Thomas said from their right. 'I haven't even figured out who I want to ask.'

Next to him Ron nodded: 'Yeah, we better get a move on though. Otherwise all the pretty girls will be taken.'

Hermione frowned at him: 'You mean that you are just going to try inviting the prettiest girl you can find?'

Ron considered that for a few seconds: 'Pretty much yeah.'

Hermione raised her hands in bewilderment: 'Well, with such a charming attitude you should have no trouble at all.'

Amazingly enough Ron actually smiled at that.

- Friday next week -

'You're really getting the hang of it Harry.' James commented when Harry conjured another pewter cauldron on Sirius' already overflowing desk. Harry simply grinned before he replied: 'I wish using cauldrons would be as easy.'

'Tough potions class huh?' Sirius asked.

'You bet.' Harry grimaced, 'Snape was testing us on antidotes today.'

'Just use bezoars.' James advised, 'Although I guess that doesn't really show that you are good with potions.' He shrugged, 'Anyway, you should ask your mother if you want help with potions, she is the brilliant one.'

Sirius snorted: 'You taught your son how to conjure stuff in a few Friday evening classes and you call her the brilliant one?' He looked thoughtful for a few seconds: 'You're probably right though.'

'Gee, thanks mate.' James chuckled. Before waving away the compliment: 'And it only means that Harry is brilliant. I never really managed to teach you after all.'

The dog animagus simply shrugged: 'Not everyone can be a transfiguration prodigy. I'm happy enough with the conjuration I do manage, thank you very much.'

'I hate to interrupt you two.' Harry dryly said, 'But does this mean my Friday evening classes won't continue after Christmas?' He wasn't sure if he was happy about that or not. It would be nice to have some free time again, but he enjoyed working with his father.

The two men looked at each other. Eventually James nodded and Sirius said: 'We think you are done with conjuring. Just keep practicing it on your own to work on your magical core. But I think you should keep visiting me on Friday evenings anyway.'

'Why?' Harry wanted to know.

'Well, as I told you sometime you should start duelling with me sometime after Christmas. I think it's a good idea to use the Friday evenings for that. That way you can use whatever excuse you have been using for your disappearances.' Sirius explained.

'What have you been telling people anyway?' James asked.

'That I helped Sirius with his lesson plans.' Harry deadpanned.

James snorted and Sirius mock-glared at him: 'You really think it's a good idea to be cheeky to me right now?'

Harry thought about that for a few seconds: 'Yup.'

Sirius grumbled a bit and James saved Harry from his retort: 'I'm going to miss those lessons. Ah well, I guess I'll have my chance next year.'

'Oh, that's right, you're teaching next year.' Harry nodded, 'What are you going to focus on?' His dad sent him a non-understanding look and he explained: 'Well, mum taught us a lot of the basics. Remus focused on dark creatures, and now Sirius is mostly working on curses, hexes and shields. And that annoying constant vigilance he keeps shouting every few moments during class.'

'CONSTANT VIGILANCE!' Sirius bellowed.

'Well, rest assured that I'm not going to do that.' James grinned, 'Mostly, I'll keep working on curses, hexes and shields. But I will add some transfiguration. I don't often use it in duels myself, but it's a good trick to learn anyway. That is for the regular classes of course, I have no clue yet what I will do with you and your friends. It depends a bit on how much Sirius manages to teach you guys.'

'Tsk. End of this year Harry will be able to wipe the floor with you in a duel Prongs.' Sirius assured his friend.

Harry chuckled, but James nodded seriously: 'I can only hope so. A few weeks ago I managed to get Dumbledore interested in a practise fight.' He shook his head: 'Wiped the floor with me. Well, to be fair I lasted some fifteen minutes, which according to him nobody but Voldemort himself had managed. But I never had the feeling that I stood a chance. And Harry will have to defeat both of them sometime.'

'Yeah, I still have no clue how.' Harry admitted, he tried not to think of it too much. Just doing his best was all he could do after all.

'You are amazingly powerful for a fourteen year old.' Sirius tried to reassure him. 'And I think we will wait until you can handle two of us at a time before introducing Dumbledore to your duelling skills. With some luck, the surprise alone will make him faint. After that, at the very least you will have the elder wand… It must mean something.'

'And beside that, there is no way that we will let you face Voldemort on your own.' James quickly added, 'Prophecy be damned!'

'Hear! Hear!' Sirius enthusiastically added. 'And now, to end this class on a high note, let's have a butterbeer.'

'Oh wait, there is one last thing I have to show you Harry.' James stopped Sirius. 'We have been working with metal and stone mostly because it's more difficult. But do you think you can conjure a flower?'

Harry shrugged, 'Not sure. Do you have an example?'

James nodded, waved his wand and suddenly had a large red rose in his hand: 'According to your mother this would work.'

'Work for what?' Harry wanted to know when he picked up the rose and sent his magic through it to learn all about it.

'Apparently in some countries it's customary for the boy to bring a nice flower for the girl to wear on her wrist or on her dress on formal occasions.' James explained, 'To be honest I had never heard about it. But Remus mentioned it and Lily thought it would be very romantic if you could conjure one for Daphne.'

'Wouldn't it be more romantic if she could actually keep the rose?' Sirius wondered while Harry tried to conjure a rose and failed horribly. He quickly vanished the ugly red thing he had made. 'I mean, Harry's conjured items usually only last a few days at best.'

James shrugged: 'That's what I said. But Lily said something made by Harry would be better. And Tonks agreed. So who am I to argue?'

'The guy who only needed seven years to get a date.' Sirius simply replied.

'You're never going to let that go, will you?' James lazily asked, before turning to Harry: 'No, Harry, not that much power. You don't want to make a metal rose.'

'Why not? Could be nice.' Sirius replied. Harry just ignored the babbling. He wanted to make a perfect rose for Daphne. After his substandard invitation he felt she deserved it. Another benefit of a conjured rose was that he could easily alter its size or colour if Daphne wanted him to. Eventually he managed it. It was almost curfew by now, and after a quick butterbeer and quickly assuring Sirius that Justin, Susan's date, was an alright guy, they exchanged a merry Christmas before he hurried back to Gryffindor tower. It would be weird to spend Christmas away from his family, but he guessed it was only for one year. And it should be fun with his friends instead.

- Christmas day -

They definitely had a white Christmas this year. And after quickly tearing through their piles of presents they ran outside for an epic snowball fight involving over fifty students. However, to Harry's surprise most of the girls left three hours in advance. He and the other boys stayed until seven o'clock, one hour before the ball. And even with only one hour Harry had time to spare. Of course, he never tried to tame his hair. It was useless anyway, so why waste time? Anyway, he figured he looked rather decent in his dark green dress robes.

Neville had dark blue dress robes, and the two friends walked to the common room together. It was an odd sight to see so many colours instead of the normal mass of black robes. Of course, the Weasley twins had by far the most flashing colours, flashy neon blue and shockingly bright orange. Neville and Harry walked to Susan, who was chatting with Parvati. 'Wow, Susan, you look great.' Harry exclaimed, 'You too Parvati.' It was true. Both girls were pretty enough normally, but Harry had to admit that Susan's intricate braid and her light blue dress looked fantastic. And Parvati didn't look bad either in her shocking pink dress, the gold in her plait and on her wrists added nicely to it. He looked back at Susan to make sure that she was indeed not wearing any obvious jewellery, somehow it seemed to work for her.

'Where's Hermione?' Neville asked.

'Oh, she's already went to meet her date. He can't come here you know.' Susan replied, 'I should be leaving as well, I agreed to meet Justin at the entrance hall. Good luck Parv.'

'Thanks.' Parvati smiled to Susan's already moving back. She turned to Harry and Neville: 'Any idea if Seamus is almost ready?'

'Yeah, he should be here soon.' Neville nodded.

Harry just shrugged, he had no idea what Seamus had been doing. Instead he said: 'We should go as well Neville. It's a long walk to the Slytherin dorms after all.'

'You're both dating Slytherins?' Parvati asked, clearly surprised. Harry wondered how that happened, they had quite publicly asked their dates at the breakfast table. And usually Parvati knew all the gossip. But he just nodded and smiled before moving to the exit. On their way to the Slytherin dorms they passed a lot of sixth and seventh year Slytherins, most of them just sneered at them but didn't say anything. Some simply ignored Harry and Neville, pretending there weren't two Gryffindors heading to their dorms.

When they arrived they only had to wait a few minutes before Tracey entered the hallway. She was wearing a fancy black dress which seemed to be stuck on her body with glue. Although the skirt at least floated freely a bit. 'Wow, Neville, you look great!' She smiled, and after Neville complimented her as well she turned to Harry: 'Daphne will be here soon. She is still arguing about her hair with Astoria.'

Harry shrugged and randomly said: 'I like it when it's loose.'

'That's what I said.' Daphne's voice sounded from behind him, 'But Astoria figured I needed some fancy hairstyle for tonight.'

He turned around and gasped. She looked absolutely amazing. She was wearing a green dress, even darker green than his dress robes. Her bodice stuck to her chest but let her shoulders bare, and from her hips her dress expanded in a wide circle. A nice silver necklace finished the outfit. He asked himself why Hogwarts robes were so bulky, Daphne looked so much better like this, before he stammered: 'I see you talked her out of it. You look brilliant!'

'Thanks Harry.' She smiled, 'You look quite dashing yourself. Nice to see that we wear similar colours.'

'Blind luck I guess.' Harry grinned, he hadn't even bought his own dress robes. But she didn't need to know that. He pulled his wand out of a pocket and concentrated a few seconds to conjure a perfect red rose: 'Here, I have something for you.'

She accepted it with a smile: 'It's lovely. Thanks.' When she looked a bit confused Harry explained: 'According to my mum you can wear it on your wrist or on your dress.'

Frowning she held it on her left wrist: 'Seems a bit too big for my wrist.'

'Well, I can alter its size or colour if you want.' Harry suggested. Some ten minutes and twenty alterations later Daphne and Tracey were finally happy with the result. Daphne smiled up at him and after another thanks she gave him a soft kiss on his cheek.

Smiling, Harry led their small group towards the great hall. Once there they followed a long line of brightly coloured students into the decorated hall. The walls of the hall had been covered in silver frost. And garlands, ivy and mistletoe crossed the starry black ceiling. The house tables had been replaced by a large number of smaller round tables, each of them seating about a dozen people. The staff table was still there, although it was slightly expanded to seat a few more people. Harry already recognized Ludo Bagman, but he didn't know the young man next to him.

They looked around for a while until Harry spotted Susan waving to them. They quickly joined her and Justin at a table. The two were already accompanied by Ernie Macmillan and Megan Jones, two other Hufflepuffs. Harry politely pulled back a chair for Daphne and noticed that it was a rather small table that only had eight chairs. Tracey was faster with the obvious question though: 'Shouldn't we save a spot for Hermione?'

'Nah, she's fine.' Susan smiled. She was one of the only ones who actually knew who Hermione's date was. And like the few other Gryffindor girls that knew she had kept silent about it. Harry had no idea why Hermione didn't want everybody to know, but he figured she was smart enough to make her own discussions. He sat down behind an empty golden platter and a menu. After reaching for a large jar of pumpkin juice and filling a few cups for himself, Daphne, Neville and Tracey he commented: 'Well, can't be that long before we find out who Hermione's mystery date is. Can you at least tell us what kind of dress she is wearing? I've been looking for her, but didn't see her yet.'

'She isn't here yet.' Was all that Susan replied.

Harry frowned, it looked like everybody was inside the great hall by now. For a moment he wondered if Hermione hadn't been able to find a date. But that seemed odd, many people liked her. His thoughts were interrupted when Dumbledore stood up and announced: 'Please welcome the triwizard champions and their dates.'

He politely started to clap, and soon all of the hall was doing so. Then the doors to the entrance hall opened once again. Professor McGonagall was the first to enter, and she walked towards the staff table in a steady pace. However, Harry barely noticed her. She had been followed by Krum, the champion with the most points so far, and his date: Hermione!

'She's with Krum?' Tracey asked above the applause, clearly bewildered, 'How did that happen? I didn't even know they had ever talked with each other.'

'Krum approached her in the library a while ago.' Susan explained, 'Said she was one of the few girls that didn't seem to care about him being a quidditch star. Whatever that may mean.' Harry nodded in understanding though. Every now and then a girl had seemed to be interested in his name or his quidditch skills. It was lucky that Daphne looked beyond those unimportant things. He guessed it would be much worse for a world famous seeker like Krum.

'She looks amazing.' Neville said, and again Harry could only nod. While he loved Daphne's loose blonde hair, he had to admit that Hermione's elegant knot also was very nice. It was a vast difference from her usually bushy hair. And for a moment he wondered if there was still hope for his own hair. She even held herself different, either because of the attention or because of the lack of twenty books on her back. They kept on applauding until all three champions and their dates were seated. Only then did Harry look at the other two champions and their dates. Cedric was with Cho Chang, the pretty Ravenclaw seeker. And Fleur was dating Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw quidditch captain. Who looked positively delighted about it.

They all waited for Dumbledore to say something more. But the man simply sat down and picked up his menu. Shrugging, Harry and the others followed their headmaster's example and each of them ordered their food. The eight of them happily chatted about unimportant things during dinner. Today's snowball fight and their Christmas presents were the main topics.

Eventually, when all the food was consumed, Dumbledore stood up and asked the students to do the same. Then, with a wave of his wand, the tables and chairs zoomed back along the walls, leaving the floor clear. Another wave of his wand conjured a platform into existence along the right0hand wall. A set of drums, a lute, several guitars, a cello and some bagpipes were set upon it. Harry shook his head in wonder. It still took him a bit of effort to conjure something simple as a rose, and here Dumbledore effortlessly altered the whole great hall.

The Weird Sisters now trooped up onto the stage to wildly enthusiastic applause. They were all extremely hairy and dressed up in torn black robes. Behind Harry Susan commented: 'I knew it would be a cool band! Sirius kept going on about those boring old bands he likes.'

Most of the lanterns faded, leaving only the dance floor and the stage brightly lit. Daphne nudging him in the side and pointed to where Hermione and Krum were entering the dance floor, accompanied by the other champions and their dates of course. The Weird Sisters started with a slow, almost mournful tone, and soon enough the three pairs were gliding over the dance floor. For a few long moments the three pairs had the dance floor for themselves, but then Dumbledore and Madam Maxime joined them. There were a few chuckled at the odd matchup; Dumbledore's hat barely reached her chin. But it was the signal for more and more pairs to enter the dance floor. Harry looked at Daphne and saw that she was still gazing to the dance floor. He held out his hand, she looked at it in surprise for a few seconds before she accepted it and the two of them also started to dance.

Harry was surprised how much he still remembered from the few dancing lessons they had at Longbottom manor under strict supervision of Neville's grandmother. It was years ago, and he had never really liked them. But it was nice to dance with Daphne. And she was nice enough to forgive him the few missteps he made. As soon as the first song was finished the Weird Sisters struck up a much faster tune. And the dance radically changed. Harry had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, but he just tried to copy the moves he saw others making and had fun.

Some thirty minutes later he had danced with Tracey, Susan and Ginny as well. But most of his time was spent with Daphne, and it was her who was pulling him of the dance floor for a short break. They both got a bottle of butterbeer before finding an empty table. 'Ah, that was fun. But I needed a little break. Stupid shoes.' Daphne sighed.

Harry smiled: 'That's what you get for not wearing heels normally.'

'Easy for you to say.' Daphne snorted.

'Yeah, I admit that I'm impressed that you manage to walk on those things, let alone dance.' Harry easily replied, then he quickly added: 'They look great though.'

She smiled: 'Yeah, too impractical though. I mean, can you imagine me fighting a duel now?'

'I would lose horribly.' Harry nodded, and when she looked at him in wonder he explained: 'I would be too distracted by your looks you know.'

'Ah, shut up.' She smiled. Then they were interrupted when Hermione sat down next to Harry. She was fanning herself with her hand: 'Hey Harry, Daphne. It's hot, isn't it? Viktor is just getting us some drinks.'

'It's a bit warm in here yeah.' Harry agreed.

'So how do you like your date with the famous quidditch star so far?' Daphne wondered.

Hermione actually blushed: 'It's fun so far. Viktor is very nice, he has been telling me about Durmstrang and Bulgaria. And he has been trying to say my name, that's not really working out yet though.'

Harry grinned: 'He should have asked Susan instead, much easier name.'

Hermione only chuckled: 'But Susan is a quidditch fan. I don't think Viktor would have liked that.'

'Love is in the air.' Daphne sung softly.

'How do you know that song?' Hermione wondered, but then she shook her head: 'Never mind. And no, I don't think Viktor is really my type. But I'm having a good time anyway. Is that a problem?'

'Not for me.' Daphne shrugged, 'Oh, here he comes now.'

Sure enough Krum joined them a few seconds later. He handed one butterbeer to Hermione with a: 'Here you go, Herm-own-ninny.'

Harry managed not to chuckle at Krum's butchering of Hermione's name. Instead he said: 'Nice to see you again.'

'You too.' Krum nodded: 'I don't know your lady?'

'Oh, yeah, this is Daphne Greengrass, my girlfriend.' Harry replied.

'Nice to meet you.' Krum said with a small bow. Daphne actually blushed at that.

'So, how was it to have dinner at the staff table Hermione?' Harry wondered, after all, he could have been there as well if his parents hadn't intervened years ago. Not that he would complain.

Hermione shrugged: 'I was talking with Viktor most of the time. Fleur was sitting on my other side, and she seemed to be complaining a lot. Apparently Beauxbatons is a lot nicer in her opinion.'

'Some say same about Durmstrang.' Krum added, 'I do not agree. Hogwarts haff a lot of nice things too.'

'Durmstrang sounds nice as well though.' Hermione smiled, 'I just told Harry and Daphne that you told me about Durmstrang.'

Krum simply nodded: 'Herm-own-ninny told me about her friends. Vhen she mentioned you-' he nodded to Harry, 'I asked about quidditch…'

Harry chuckled, understanding Krum's surprise: 'That's pretty much the only subject the doesn't know much about.' Hermione mock-glared at him, but smiled brightly when Krum added: 'I knov that. That is vhot I like about her.'

Still, he seemed happy enough to talk quidditch with Harry. Apparently the older seeker was already looking forward to some legendary matches when Harry would go pro. He smiled at the conviction in Krum's eyes, like there was not a single possible reason for Harry not to become a professional quidditch player. Sadly, he had some other things to worry about. But he could hardly tell Krum about Voldemort and the prophecy. Still, he didn't really mind when Daphne and Hermione pulled them back to the dance floor.

This time, they kept on dancing until the last song of the evening. Harry actually had to support Daphne part of the way when he escorted her back to the Slytherin dorms. Not that he really minded of course. In front of their entrance Daphne smiled at him and said: 'Thanks Harry, I had a wonderful evening.'

'Yeah, me too.' Harry replied, somewhat surprised. He had not really been looking forward to an evening filled with dancing. He was even more surprised when Daphne leaned forward and gave him a long, soft kiss on the lips. He was still too shocked to say anything when Daphne entered the Slytherin entrance, and only slowly brought his fingers to his lips after a few seconds. That was new, but he liked it.

_A/N: Pfew, I'm never going to write about a ball again… That was hard :P I guess Harry and Daphne are moving rather slow when their first kiss is a few weeks after their first date. But it seemed to work out. Not too much action again, but I could hardly ignore the Yule Ball. If only because it's such a nice opportunity to throw in a few possible spoilers about pairings. Not to say that any of the couples of tonight will turn into a long relationship, but at least you can think about it;) _

_Oh, I was thinking of changing the pairing of this story to Harry/ Daphne for now. And I was wondering if you guys would agree or if you all feel that other people should also struggle through some fifty chapters before finding out about Harry's (first?) girlfriend?_

'


	61. The second task

**The second task**

'Magica revelio.' Harry mumbled for the tenth time tonight. He watched as the white jet shot forward and disappeared after a few feet. Three separate lists of symbols appeared. The first list showed complicated mathematical formulas, Harry studied them for a few seconds but quickly admitted that he would need hours to work out those formulas. If he even managed it. He wasn't really sure if he knew all the Greek symbols that he spotted. On the second list he saw a large number of runes. The fehu rune, which symbolized wealth, appeared quite often. Although some of them were slightly altered. He got the feeling that he was looking at a mild protective ward, which was confirmed by the neutral blue symbols on the last list. The exclamation marks gave him the idea that this was an alarm ward. If he tripped it, someone would be alerted. And he would fail this assignment.

He hesitated and looked at the arithmantic and runic formula's again. Given enough time and some paper to work things out he might be able to find out how the ward exactly worked. But there was a time limit involved. He quickly looked around and saw that Hermione was only some fifteen yards away from the finish line in her track. She was sitting down cross-legged while studying the ward in front of her, and absently shielded against a stunning spell from the side. Tracey, Fred, George and surprisingly Ginny were not that far behind her. Focusing back on his own situation he guessed that he still had some sixty yards, almost half a quidditch field, to go of his own obstacle course. So far, he had only managed to disable two wards by runes or arithmancy. In all other occasions, he had simply overpowered them. After a last glance at the runes and the numbers he figured that would be his best option again.

'Magica revelio!' He said again, while mentally focusing on the sun rune for extra visibility. Now he saw a bluish screen blocking his way. It vaguely reminded him of the ward that had stopped Neville. The other boy had never followed arithmancy or ancient runes classes, and had quickly realised that today's assignment would be impossible for him. So he had simply transfigured a rock into a labrador not much smaller than Cedric's attempt at the first task. He had sent the dog forward on his own trail of wards and the poor animal had been painted blue after some ten steps. Immediately, Frank had vanished it from the sideline. Neville had simply transfigured a new dog and moved it forward. Most of the other students had been watching Neville's attempts instead of starting their own runs at that time. And they all saw when the second dog was painted red and vanished again. Neville had slowly moved forward and was now already ten yards into the field, until his third dog ran into a ward that flashed blue. The dog was unharmed, but suddenly Neville's track turned red and Frank called: 'You can simply walk forward now Neville. Sorry, but you failed.'

By now, almost half of the obstacle tracks that crossed Lionfire Hall's quidditch pitch had turned red. And Harry figured he was one of the slowest of the survivors. Harry wasn't sure if all of them had fallen victim to a ward like this, but he was carefully looking at the blue field. Eventually he aimed his wand at the bottom of the field and poured pure magic out of it. Slowly but steadily the magic started to push the blue screen upward. But it was only a feet above the ground when it suddenly stopped. Harry frowned, not sure why it suddenly stopped. After a few seconds he shrugged, dropped down on his belly and crawled through the small hole.

As soon as he was through he stood up again and pointed his wand forward again. This time, the white jet of his magica revelio disappeared after less than one foot. He smiled when he saw the runes, most of them were simple ice runes. He could counter those with a few well placed fire runes. Only thirty seconds later he stood in front of the next ward. This one was the most complicated he had encountered so far. Judging by the third list it had both neutral and hostile aspects and he carefully studied the numbers and runes to work out how exactly this ward worked. He used his wand to carefully alter a few numbers to at least reduce the power of the hostile aspects when a loud applause sounded. Surprised, he looked up and saw Hermione leaving the field, her track turning green behind her. He looked back to his formula and his eyes widened. The numbers had ran out of control when he wasn't paying attention! 'Oh, crap!'

In a huge torrent of orange paint the entire ward scheme crashed down on him. He spat out a bit of paint before taking a few minutes and several scourgifys to clean himself. Of course, his track was dark red by now and with a shrug he walked toward the end of it. Once there he was greeted by his father: 'Nice job Harry.'

He shrugged again: 'I guess. But I prefer fighting. I think I'm better at that.'

James simply grinned: 'At least you learned that you shouldn't allow yourself to be distracted while trying to disable a ward.'

'I guess so.' Harry admitted with a rueful grin. 'And it's good to know who's good at this. I can't say I'm surprised that Hermione was the fastest one though.'

'Me neither.' James nodded, 'And the only one so far. Fred just got stunned before Hermione finished, so only five others can still make it.'

Harry turned around and saw that George, Ginny and Tracey all were rather close to the end of their tracks. Halfway across the field he saw Susan working her way through a ward. And behind her Daphne was carefully moving forward. He checked his watch and saw that there were only twenty minutes to go. He figured Susan and Daphne didn't really have a chance. Although he was glad to know that Daphne wasn't taking any risks. 'So, if we ever encounter real wards… Will they be like those?' Harry asked, while waving back to the field.

James hesitated: 'It depends. Lily, Frank and Remus spent quite some time on them.' He waved to the side of the pitch were the three of them were carefully watching the students that were still trying to fight through their wards. Every now and then one of them would send a stunner to a random student. 'So I think they were more complicated than wards you may find around a temporary camp site or something like that. But if you try to get close to an old pureblood manor, or another site that should be well protected… Well, you're better of trying to find a good curse breaker to help you out. But I think Hermione and the others of that forward group proved that they are good enough to try and work things out without killing themselves.'

Again Harry nodded, and both men looked up when another track turned red. 'I should go talk with Susan now.' James said, 'Go join the others.'

Harry looked around and saw that all the others who had already finished the course, or been finished by the course in most cases, were gathered around the goal hoops. He walked over and joined Hermione, Fred and Ron. 'Nice job Hermione.'

'Thanks Harry.' She smiled, 'You got quite far yourself I think.'

'Yeah, but to be honest I had no idea what I was doing half the time. I simply overpowered most of the wards.' Harry admitted.

Ron snorted. 'At least you knew what you had to do. I really didn't have a clue and eventually simply walked into the first ward to be done with it.'

Fred chuckled. 'I'm so proud of my little brother.'

'Well, this task was impossible without knowing arithmancy or runes.' Hermione defended Ron.

Ron looked at her in surprise before adding: 'I guess that was part of the idea today. Let us work out who can disable wards and who can't.'

'Obviously.' Harry agreed before looking at Fred. 'You're taking both arithmancy and runes then?'

'Nah, only runes.' Fred replied, and when Harry looked puzzled he continued: 'George is taking arithmancy though. And we taught each other the useful parts of the subjects.'

'The parts you can use for creating pranks you mean.' Ron helped. Fred looked at him and grinned: 'That's what I said? Right?'

Hermione looked confused by the idea of not studying full subjects. But any questions of her were interrupted when Ginny joined them: 'Hey guys.'

'Hey Ginny.' They all replied, Harry looked behind him and saw another green track: 'Oh wow, you managed to pass as well? Congrats.'

'Thank you Harry.' She smiled.

'Yeah, well done Ginny.' Hermione added with a frown, 'How did you manage that? I mean, you're still in your first year of arithmancy and runes?'

'Bill sometimes teaches me a few things when he's at home.' Ginny shrugged.

'He never wanted to teach us anything.' Fred pouted.

Ginny laughed: 'You shouldn't have pranked him so often.'

Harry looked at Ron. After a few seconds the boy seemed to understand his unasked question and said: 'He never taught me anything either. But I never really asked for it. Usually when Bill's home Charlie will be there as well. And I rather join him for some quidditch then.'

A loud whistle interrupted Hermione's reply. They all turned around and saw that the remaining three tracks had turned blue. There was another green track, and Harry noticed that his father was now talking to Tracey. George, Susan and Daphne were now walking to the end of the pitch and with a nod to the others Harry walked away to intercept Daphne. 'Well done Daphne, you survived.'

'Yeah, I guess.' She shrugged, 'I didn't even get halfway though.'

'Better slow than hurt I guess.' Harry replied. 'Anyway, if we ever need to do this for real we'll just follow Hermione, Ginny and Tracey.'

'I guess.' She smiled before looking at her watch. 'You know, it's almost midnight. I somewhat expected a short training again with the second task this week and all that, but we didn't even manage to return to Hogwarts before curfew.'

'It's only in two days. I guess they think we have enough time to recover.' Harry answered.

As soon as all the students were gathered together Lily addressed them: 'Well done, all of you. Even if you didn't manage to make much headway on your own obstacle course. At least now you know to be careful. Anyway, we are running much too late. So, Sirius will bring you back to Hogwarts in a minute. Make sure to be prepared for anything during the second task on Wednesday. Again, we have no signals of any danger, but you never know.'

-Tuesday evening-

All of the Gryffindor fourth years were gathered around a large table in their common room. Hermione was trying to explain a particularly difficult chapter of their potions book. Harry was sure that he was not the only one getting more and more frustrated about the whole thing. What did he care about some crazy law that influenced the minimum amount of ingredients for a potion? He liked challenging puzzles in most of his other subjects, but with potions he preferred to focus on simply making them. Instead of thinking too much about the subject. He guessed it was a bit early to already decide on which courses to choose after fifth year, but right now he felt ready to drop potions.

He finally started to understand some of the chapter when the Weasley twins showed up. He thought it was George who said: 'Hermione? Professor McGonagall asked to see you at her office.'

Hermione's 'why?' was drowned by the complaints of her year mates. Fred and George looked puzzled and Ron explained: 'She was helping us with potions, none of us gets this chapter.'

Fred and George looked at each other, they both shrugged simultaneously and Fred said: 'McGonagall seemed rather impatient.'

Hermione nodded. 'I guess we'll work on this after the task tomorrow.'

'Or we can take over.' George suggested while picking up Hermione's book. 'Golpalott's first law? That's not too bad.'

Hermione shot them a doubtful look before heading to the exit. The twins dropped in her seat and immediately started a confusing explanation where they interrupted each other every few seconds. Still, somehow, Harry managed to pick up a few things. And when the twins finally quieted down he explained those things to the others. It was Susan who managed to work out the rest of the chapter, and about an hour later most of the Gryffindor fourth years understood the troublesome chapter.

Of course, the twins claimed credit for their 'brilliant teaching' and decided to celebrate it by offering Canary Creams for special prices. They described their new invention and there was quite a bit of interest, until Ron wondered aloud if they were already done testing. The identical rueful grins made everybody return to their potions homework.

When Harry finished he noticed that it was already close to curfew. He also noticed that Hermione hadn't returned yet. When he pointed this out to Susan and Neville they quickly agreed to follow him to McGonagall's office.

Their head of house welcome them into her office. 'Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom and Ms. Bones, I guess I could have expected this visit.'

'Where's Hermione?' Harry wanted to know, not really caring about the formalities right now.

'We've asked her to assist us during tomorrow's task.' McGonagall replied simply.

'Oh.' Harry eloquently replied. That surprised him.

'What's she supposed to do?' Susan wanted to know.

'I'm afraid that I'm not at liberty to share that information. Rest assured that she will be perfectly safe though.' The professor answered.

The three students looked at each other, but didn't really know what to say to that. And after a few seconds McGonagall continued: 'I appreciate that you are worried about your friend. But I guarantee you that she will be fine. Also, you might want to hurry back to your common room now. Curfew is in five minutes.'

Reluctantly they left the office again. Neville was the first to ask the obvious question: 'Why didn't Hermione tell us?'

Harry shook his head to indicate that he had no idea. Susan seemed to think about something for a few seconds. Eventually she suggested: 'Maybe she didn't want to show her mirror? It's possible that there were strangers involved.'

'Maybe.' Neville shrugged.

To their surprise they found professor Dumbledore waiting for them at the entrance to the Gryffindor room. He smiled at them. 'Hello. You're fellow students already informed me that you went to visit professor McGonagall. I believe that you already know that Ms. Granger volunteered to assist us during the tournament?'

'Yes we do.' Harry nodded, and he quickly added: 'What exactly is she going to do?'

But the headmaster only shook his head while his eyes twinkled merrily. 'Oh no. You will find out tomorrow together with all the other students. Ms. Granger asked me to inform the three of you about her participation. So, now that I have assured myself that you know I believe I will head back to my office. Have a good night.'

Harry, Neville and Susan grumbled about professors who didn't want to tell things before climbing back through the portrait hole.

- Wednesday -

It was odd to head to breakfast without Hermione. And Harry wasn't really surprised at all the questions they got. Still, there wasn't much they could tell the others. At least the task was supposed to start right after breakfast. And Harry, Neville and Susan made sure to be at the side of the lake on time to get some front row seats. They were almost immediately joined by Daphne and Tracey. The latter one was looking around and asked: 'Any sign of Hermione?'

'No, but maybe she's in that tent.' Susan said while pointing at the same tent that had housed the champions during the first task.

'What do you think the task will be?' Daphne asked Harry.

He could only shrug. 'No idea, all I see is the lake… Maybe they have to swim across it or something?'

'Doesn't sound too exciting.' Daphne commented, and again he could only shrug. He couldn't really imagine what else the champions could do in the lake. And a few minutes later the three champions did show up in swimming attire. Swimming trunks for Krum and Cedric and a silver one-piece bathing suit for Fleur. Harry and his friends barely looked at them though.

They kept looking around for Hermione instead and waited in nervous silence until Bagman's voice boomed: 'Well, all our champions are ready! They have exactly one hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three then. One… two… three!'

The whistle sounded and the three champions ran towards the lake. Both Fleur and Cedric created large grey balls around their heads. Tracey identified it as the bubblehead charm and suddenly gasped: 'That means they have to go underwater! You think Hermione is in the lake?'

Harry watched Krum transfiguring his upper body into that of a shark before he also dived into the lake. Reluctantly he admitted: 'I guess so. Both Dumbledore and McGonagall said she would be perfectly safe though.'

'While submerged?' Tracey asked, disbelief clearly shining through. Nobody answered her though. And after a few seconds Neville wondered: 'Why would they ask Hermione to volunteer?'

'Because she was Krum's date at the Yule Ball I guess.' Susan reasoned.

'Oh yeah. That makes sense I guess.' Neville nodded.

By now all three champions were below the water and Harry shook his head in wonder: 'This task doesn't make sense. I mean, the dragons were interesting to watch… but now we are just looking at water? Even a gobstones competition would have been more fun to watch!'

'And would not have involved Hermione.' Tracey somewhat agreed.

They waited impatiently for something to happen. Eventually, after some forty minutes with no action at all, Fleur was the first to return to the shore. Her swimsuit was torn on several interesting places and Harry hoped he was not the only one to blush until madam Maxime covered her champion in a big towel. Fleur started to talk to her headmaster and it was clear that she wanted to go back into the water. Harry frowned: 'It looks like she doesn't want to leave her hostage. You think there is danger involved after all?'

'Maybe it's just that she wants to win?' Susan wondered, but she didn't sound convinced.

'There's only twenty minutes to go.' Daphne calmly said, 'I take it Krum will bring Hermione out before time runs out. And otherwise Dumbledore better makes sure he gets her out unharmed.'

Neville grinned: 'Otherwise you're going to talk with him?'

Daphne only nodded in reply.

To their disappointment Cedric was the first champion to return with his hostage, Cho Chang from Ravenclaw. His date from the Yule Ball. It was not like they didn't want the Hogwarts champion to win. But they wanted to see Hermione. Harry felt rather worried when he realised that Cedric actually arrived just outside the time limit. But he tried to keep his worries for himself.

Ten minutes later there was still no sign of Krum or Hermione. And by now everybody had realised that the time limit had passed. All of them were worriedly looking at the lake, although Susan had pointed out that the teachers still looked calm enough. Eventually, a shark head appeared near the shore, which gathered some screams. Harry found that rather stupid because everybody had seen Krum's half transformation before. Beside that, he was much more interested in the curly hair of his friend showing up behind the half-shark. Hermione looked around in wonder, like she had just woken up and had no idea where she was.

Krum morphed back into his normal self and escorted Hermione, who was holding her hands rather oddly, to madam Pomfrey. Meanwhile a large group of Merfolk appeared near the shore. They handed a small blond haired girl to Dumbledore. There was a lot of laughter when Fleur ran over, grabbed the girl and bumped so hard into Dumbledore that the old man toppled into the water. Fleur looked mortified, but Dumbledore seemed to be laughing as well when he climbed out of the lake. After a few waves of his wand he started to talk with one of the bigger Merpeople.

Harry and the others barely cared about all that. Instead, they kept watching for Hermione, who had disappeared with Krum and madam Pomfrey into a small tent. A few minutes later she walked outside again, shortly talked with Krum and walked over to them. After a quick round of hugs she said: 'I'm so sorry that I couldn't tell you about this. But the headmasters of the others schools were attending as well, and I didn't want to show my mirror.'

'Seems you were right Susan.' Neville grinned.

'Never doubt me again.' She smiled back at him.

'What were you doing down there?' Tracey wanted to know.

Hermione shrugged. 'Not much actually. Dumbledore put me and the others in some kind of magical sleep yesterday evening and I only woke up when Viktor pulled me above the water. It's a shame, I would have liked to see a real Merfolk village.'

'Why did you need to see the medi-witch?' Daphne wondered just before Harry could ask the same.

'Oh, I had some cuts on my arms. Nothing too bad, Viktor explained that it had been difficult to untie me below water.' She looked around, 'I should stay with him for a bit until the end of the task. See you later.' And she left them again.

Harry grinned at her sudden departure, but Tracey asked: 'I thought she didn't even really like him?'

'I don't think she does.' Neville replied, 'Or at least, not that way. But he's friendly enough when he finally starts to talk.'

'And you know Hermione. She will always try to do the right thing. So if she has to stick with Krum until the end of the task then that's what she will do.' Harry added.

Tracey nodded in acceptance. After that, they simply waited for the scores of the champions and learned that Cedric was now in the lead. Shortly after that Hermione joined them: 'Let's see if I can find some late breakfast. I'm starving.'

They all went to the kitchens, were Hermione immediately got a huge breakfast from the elves. The others assured her that the task had been utterly boring to watch and that she hadn't missed anything.

_A/N: I couldn't really make much out of this task. I thought about adding some kind of floating arrows above the lake to follow the champions, but that didn't really make things more interesting. And some kind of underwater camera setup sounded a bit too farfetched. I might do something like that for the third task though (beside the underwater part obviously). __So a bit of a tame chapter;) _

_Also, it seems most of you think I shouldn't change the pairing of the story. So I won't :P It did remind me that it's about time for a James chapter again though._


	62. Bad news

**Bad news**

James carefully compared the new set of runes to the book. It was tedious work at best, but in their group he was at best mediocre at runes. So he was simply checking their work instead of etching his own runes into the stone. The project that had kept them busy since the summer vacation was turning into a work of art though. A large rectangular block of white marble filled the room. It was about four feet high, six feet wide and fourteen feet long. About three quarters of its sides were filled with small runes. The runes on the top were invisible by now, hidden below a large three dimensional map of Britain and its surrounding seas. On one of the long sides was a control panel with several buttons.

Lily, Remus and Frank were discussing something next to the control panel while Alice was checking another part of the table. She and James had not managed to find a single mistake during all their check-ups so far, but it was important to keep on looking. Still, James couldn't say he was disappointed when Timmy showed up next to him and said: 'The headmaster just arrived through the floo.'

Remus and Lily immediately covered the sides of the marble block with white sheets. Then after a few looks were exchanged James nodded: 'Bring him to us Timmy.'

The five of them gathered around the control panel and were soon joined by the headmaster. The man studied the map for a few seconds before he said: 'Good afternoon all. Dare I inquire to the function of this fascinating map?'

'Hello Albus,' Lily replied, 'You know our Marauders Map?' The headmaster only nodded, he still wasn't entirely happy that they refused to make a few extra copies for him and his staff. Lily continued: 'This table is similar, but works for all of Britain. Of course, it will show a lot less detail. We can hardly show everybody that lives in Britain.'

Dumbledore looked puzzled. 'Then what are you going to use it for?'

'We want to be able to look for groups that share certain qualities.' Remus took over the explanation. 'For example, if we focus the table on giant blood it will show all the giants in Britain. Of course, on this scale it will only give us a rough indication. But we added a few detailed areas.' He pressed a button and a beam of light projected a map of Diagon Alley above the table. 'We can do the same for Hogsmeade, Godric's Hollow and several other villages. We are working on adding a few other locations like Ottery St. Catchpole.'

'Impressive.' The headmaster nodded, 'Did you already test it?'

'We did a test run with blood of a common Welsh dragon last week.' Lily took over again. 'It worked great. Or at least, we could monitor about fifty dragons. It's hard to judge if that is Britain's entire population.'

Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a few seconds. 'I have no idea. You should ask someone at the ministry.'

Lily shook her head. 'We don't want the ministry to know about this table. You have to agree that they have a history of mistreating the other races, and we don't want to give them the means to hunt them.'

The headmaster nodded. 'You make a good point. But then, what is the purpose of this table? I can see how it would warn us if Voldemort recruits giants again, but I have the feeling that's not your only goal?'

'We want to focus it on death eater marks.' James added his two cents, 'Snape volunteered to help us during the summer. If we manage it, this table will provide us fantastic intel. Of course, it can't penetrate wards. So death eaters inside most pureblood estates, Hogwarts or the ministry won't show up. But if we add an alarm function the map will warn us when one or more show up in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade for example.'

'You keep surprising me.' The headmaster chuckled, 'It seems like a brilliant idea. Will you share this part of the technology?'

'Not the technology itself.' James replied, 'But Remus is working on two maps which will be linked to this table. One for auror headquarters and one for the Order of the Phoenix. We will activate the connection if our map finds a large amount of death eaters.'

'I see.' Dumbledore nodded. 'I can hardly blame you for keeping this map well hidden. It offers great potential, but in the wrong hands…'

'Exactly.' James agreed, 'But I take it you didn't visit to discuss our map?'

'Of course not. I didn't even know about it.' Dumbledore agreed pleasantly, before he suddenly turned serious. 'Yesterday, the ministry issued a new educational decree. They were apparently worried about the fact that Hogwarts needs a new defence teacher every year. And so, as of yesterday I'm only allowed to hire a defence professor that has passed the new defence test of the ministry.'

'So, I have to go the ministry and do some kind of test before I can teach next year?' James wondered. It didn't sound too bad, a bit annoying maybe.

'In theory yes…' The headmaster hesitated and Lily suddenly asked: 'When can James do the test?'

'Two days ago.' He simply replied before holding his hands up defensively: 'I'm sorry James, I only learned about this today.'

'What? But… That's ridiculous.' James objected, 'You mean to tell me that I can't teach next year?'

Again the old man hesitated: 'I'm not absolutely sure yet. I'm trying to put some pressure on the ministry to allow for a second test before the new school-year.'

'What about Sirius?' Remus asked.

'He can finish the year.' Dumbledore replied, 'Fudge wanted me to sack him, but I pointed out that Sirius' family is quite influential in both the wizengamot and the ministry and he reconsidered. I tried to use the same argument for you James, but he flatly refused to move on that part. Sadly, the ministry is allowed to add extra requirements for instructors at Hogwarts, so I'm afraid that I can't stop this.'

'Come on, there has to be a way.' James protested. He had been looking forward to teaching next year, especially after his one on one conjuration lessons with Harry. 'Can't I bribe someone or so? That usually works in the ministry.'

'I'm afraid not.' Dumbledore shook his head, 'It seems like only Fudge himself and a few of his most loyal supporters knew about this, they might be corrupt but not when it involves their own plans. None of my sources inside the ministry saw it coming.'

'Who did they invite for their test?' Frank wondered, 'And will we have an opportunity to take the test next year at least?'

Dumbledore answered his second question first: 'The test will be held every time that Hogwarts needs a new defence teacher. Sadly, Sirius' contract already showed that he would leave us after this year. So Fudge abused that little detail. And the only one who participated two days ago was Dolores Umbridge, Fudge's undersecretary.'

Remus growled and his eyes turned gold. Umbridge was a fanatical pureblood who had introduced several anti-werewolf laws during the last few years. Remus had been protected from their effects due to his job here at Lionfire Hall, but that didn't mean he liked her. James had to admit that he barely knew the woman; he never visited the ministry that much. But the stories he heard about her where not that positive. And somehow he didn't expect an undersecretary to know a lot about defence.

'This is ridiculous.' Lily argued. 'I like to think that I did a good job. And I'm sure that Remus did fine as well. According to Harry they learn a lot from Sirius now, so why on earth would the ministry interfere now?'

Dumbledore shook his head in wonder: 'I talked with Kingsley and Arthur before coming here. Apparently, Fudge is afraid that we're preparing the Hogwarts students for war.'

'Well, duh.' Lily replied, 'Of course we do. Voldemort is out there.'

'I'm afraid that the ministry still doesn't believe that. Or at least, Fudge doesn't.' Dumbledore calmly replied, 'He seems to be afraid that the students of Hogwarts will form the core of some kind of rebellion.'

There was a long silence at this. Eventually Alice concluded: 'Did he totally lose his mind or something?

Dumbledore chuckled. 'Sadly, no. He's just paranoid. If I suspected him to be unable to do his job due to a mental problem I could call for a vote as chief warlock. But I'm afraid to admit that I think the man is just misjudged and ignorant. Not entirely crazy. I believe he is overreacting to the events at the quidditch world cup, more specifically Ms. Greengrass' actions.'

'I'm not sure if I see the difference.' Frank grinned before he turned to James, 'You must be proud though, your son is dating a girl that scared the minister.'

James vaguely remembered how Harry had said a few things about the DA after the whole skirmish in the Greengrass tent. For the life of him, he couldn't work out how anyone could make that into a possible revolution. 'Can't we start a vote between our own families?' He half asked, half suggested.

Dumbledore hesitated: 'I'm sure you have enough support to get a vote started. But I think too many families would vote in favour of Fudge. Many of the families thrive under Fudge's weak leadership. And like Fudge himself, they are not yet convinced that war is heading our way.'

'Bah. So I have to hope that Voldemort shows himself just so I can teach defence next year?' James summarized.

'I'm afraid that would be the easiest way.' Dumbledore agreed. 'Still, I'm afraid Voldemort will stay hidden for a while longer. I believe he is still building his strength for now. I'm afraid that if Fudge insists on acting the way he is now our side will only grow weaker.'

The five of them exchanged a few worried looks. James still thought that their best option was to train themselves and Harry's group as best as they could, but right now he wondered if they shouldn't have invested more time in politics. Eventually he said: 'Can you meet with madam Longbottom and Mr. Greengrass, Albus? Maybe they have some ideas.'

'Of course.' The old man agreed, 'Rest assured that I will do everything I can think of to get you to Hogwarts next year James. I mean, it is a long time ago that we had this quality of defence teaching several years in a row. Or even for one year. And I'm most reluctant to let the ministry ruin it.'

'That's something at least.' James nodded. Out of nowhere Timmy appeared with a tea service. Apparently the experienced house elf had decided that his humans needed some time to calm down. Surprisingly enough, it actually worked. And they calmly debated their options to either get James into Hogwarts or Umbridge out of Hogwarts as fast as possible next year. Although Dumbledore argued that they should give Umbridge a chance. Remus disagreed rather loudly.

As soon as Dumbledore left the remaining five discussed their options for Harry's inner circle. They could hardly expect Umbridge to offer her office as a rally point for all the students before portkeying them to Lionfire Hall each week. But eventually they worked out some possible solutions. And Alice offered James her spot as a defence teacher in sixth year if he couldn't get fifth year. Apparently she wasn't really looking forward to teaching anyway.

_A/N:_ _I felt it was about time for a (short) James chapter. And for some insight in their newest project ;) Sometimes I think I should add a Voldemort chapter to show what's going on over there. But I guess that if you guys find out at the same time as the characters in the story it's early enough, right? _


	63. Fourth year training

**Fourth year training**

Panting Harry evaded another stunner. He had to admit that he was getting better at this. When Sirius first told him he wasn't going to hold back in their duels anymore Harry had lost the next one within minutes. He thought he had been somewhat prepared to fight an adult, but Sirius' fast, powerful and accurate spellfire had quickly defeated him. However, by now their duels usually lasted far longer. He had even managed to win a few times. He sidestepped another pair of stunners and saw a bodybind curse bouncing of his basilisk armour. His main problem was that Sirius still was too powerful for him to take him out from a long distance. The only times that he had managed to win was when he managed to get close to Sirius, his own seeker reflexes were far better than Sirius' on a short distance.

Of course, Sirius had realised this as well. Now every time Harry tried to move closer a rain of spells would force him back. Sirius had warded a barely used Hogwarts corridor to use for their duel tonight. It had not enough obstacles for Harry to run from protection to protection, so he had to think of something else. He dodged yet another stunner and answered with an expelliarmus. A few minutes ago he had tried to conjure some obstacles, but Sirius blasted them apart within seconds. A thought came to him and he bellowed: 'Serpentoria!'

He wasn't surprised when the large snake was immediately destroyed by Sirius, but simply bellowed the spell again. However, between those two spells he had conjured a large rubber ball behind Sirius. He kept on conjuring balls between his serpentorias until he whispered: 'Accio balls.'

Sirius only saw Harry's wand movements and looked momentarily surprised when no spell came his way. He created a shield anyway, but it only covered his front. Harry had to suppress a grin when several of the large balls crashed into his godfathers legs at the same time. The things weren't big enough to topple Sirius, but as soon as the man looked down Harry sprinted forwards. Sirius only needed a moment to remove the balls and focus back on Harry, but by that time Harry had crossed half the distance and started to fire hexes and curses while still running.

Sirius blocked all of them and even managed to return a few weak spells when he slowly started to retreat. But Harry was moving to fast, and a few seconds later the two of them were exchanging spells almost toe-to-toe. Just like the earlier two times when Harry had managed to create a situation like this, his faster reflexes helped him to block or evade far more easily than his godfather. And after a short but furious fight he landed an expelliarmus on Sirius.

With a friendly grin Sirius admitted defeat. 'Well done Harry!'

'Thanks.' Harry smiled while returning Sirius' wand, 'But I feel like I need to work out some way to defeat you from a distance.'

'Give it a bit of time and you will simply blast me away. It's amazing that you managed to come this close to my level in such a short time. Of course, I'm still way below Dumbledore and Voldemort. But you have several years to go. In the end, you will be as powerful, maybe even stronger.' Sirius shrugged.

'If they give me that much time.' Harry grimaced.

Sirius hesitated a few seconds. 'That's our main concern yeah. Well, Dumbledore will wait for you. But Voldemort… He has been silent for a long time now. I think it works in our favour, since you are improving with leaps and bounds. Last year, you were no match for Voldemort. By now, I think you will be able to survive for a few minutes at least.'

'That's reassuring.' Harry dryly replied.

Sirius chuckled. 'It is. Look, we will always try to come to your aid. Two minutes is a long time in a battle. It could be enough for a few of us to join you, which could very well be the difference between life and death.'

'I can see that.' Harry reluctantly nodded, 'But doesn't the prophecy say that I'm the only one who can fight him?'

'Yeah, it does.' Sirius shrugged, 'Personally, I'm still not that convinced about divination. Although I can hardly deny it after what happened on Halloween all those years ago… Still, if you face Voldemort and I'm on your side I will launch every single spell I can think of against him. You think he will have enough faith in that prophecy to totally ignore my spells?'

'Guess not.' Harry grinned. 'Even after four years it's still a weird idea. You know? That I apparently have to kill someone.'

'Something.' Sirius corrected, 'Voldemort is barely human anymore. But I can understand that it will be difficult for you. Still, if you manage to stun him I can't imagine him surviving the dementor's kiss. And even Fudge isn't corrupt enough to let Voldemort bribe his way out of that sentence.' He looked thoughtful for a few seconds. 'Not sure if I would bet money on that though. It's Fudge we're talking about after all. Maybe you'll have to become minister to make sure that Voldemort actually gets his sentence and fulfil the prophecy that way?'

Harry laughed. 'Unlikely. Beside that, you're going to be the first lady when Amelia takes over from Fudge. And I don't think Amelia will be bribed.'

'First lady?' Sirius frowned before sending a stunner at Harry. Somehow Harry managed to evade the first four spells which were fired from only two feet away. He even managed to pull his wand out of his pocket before a stunner finally got him.

— Monday evening —

It was only three weeks to the summer vacation but today would be the last time that the inner circle of the DA gathered at Sirius' office on a Monday night. Next week would be filled with exams and the third task. And the adults had agreed to give them a week off after that. Well, beside the morning runs around the lake of course. Harry was already looking forward to that week. He had invited Daphne to spend at least one day with just the two of them, maybe a few more. Both of them were really looking forward to it. Still, tonight they had other business. 'Alright people. Usual routine, get your squad together and find cover. We'll work out a plan on the mirrors.'

Everybody nodded in agreement. They had been portkeyed into random environments for the last few weeks, ranging from deserted office buildings to mountains and caves. Eventually they had worked out a tactic that prepared them for almost everything. They would split up in four groups of four and run for cover. After that Harry would contact the other three squad leaders on their mirrors and work out a plan. Unless they were immediately attacked on arrival battle of course, then there was not much to plan.

Sirius handed a long rope to Susan. 'Here you go Susan. It will activate in five minutes, good luck. And see you there.'

And with a wave of his wand he activated his own portkey. Harry took a piece of rope and quickly said: 'Right, teams for today. Daphne, Luna and Ron are with me. Hermione, Tracey, Justin and Hannah are second squad, Hermione is leader. Alicia has third squad with Fred, George and Terry. And Susan leads the last squad. Which of course includes Neville, Katie and Ginny. Everybody agreed?'

They changed the squads and squad leaders every week to make sure that everyone was able to work together. Although Harry himself was always squad leader and Daphne was always in his team. The Weasley twins were the only other duo who were always together. Nobody objected to this week's setup and Harry continued: 'One last armour check then and good luck!'

He quickly checked his own basilisk suit. Of course, he had already done so a few times. But it couldn't hurt to check one last time. So far, the suit had always been a perfect fit for him, but some of the others had outgrown theirs. So they now had to live with small vulnerable spots. All their suits would be refitted during this year's summer camp. Suddenly he heard a tearing noise. Looking down he saw that the rope had split apart on both sides of his hand. He quickly looked around and saw that all the others also had a small piece or rope in their hands now. 'Oh, bugger.' Somebody said before Harry felt the familiar tug behind his navel.

Seconds later he landed in a crouch, his wand in front of him. Looking around he found himself in the middle of a forest, there was no sign of the others. He quickly dived behind a tree and considered his options. He was somewhat tempted to use his mirror to find someone, maybe Daphne, but he figured it would be better to remain silent. He made a mental note to ask Hermione, Fred and George to work on some kind of tracking device to add to their mirrors or something like that. This was the first time that they had been split apart during travel, and they were not really prepared for it. He decided to start moving north, mainly because he didn't like the idea of simply waiting for something to happen. After all, he had been dropped here by the 'enemy'.

After about ten minutes of running from tree to tree he heard a soft noise to his right. He crouched down behind a small bush and pointed his wand towards the noise. After a few seconds he saw Katie hiding behind another tree. 'Katie!' he whisper-shouted.

She heard him and a few seconds later she crouched down next to him. 'Hey Harry, no sign of the others yet?' She whispered.

'No. Didn't see any of our opponents either so far. I'm not totally sure what's going on. What about you?' Harry admitted.

'Same, I thought of using a disillusionment charm, but I figured that would make me invisible to you and the others as well.' Katie frowned: 'So, what do we do?'

'Just keep on moving and try to find the others I guess.' Harry shrugged.

She nodded and a few seconds later they were crawling forward again. Some five minutes later Katie was the first one to spot their next friend. She was lying flat on her stomach, facing away from them. Judging by the blond hair Harry guessed it was Daphne or Tracey, but since both of them stuffed their long hair into the back of their suits it was hard to say in the moonlight. The other two blondes, Luna and Hannah, didn't really match. Luna was smaller than the girl lying there and Hannah a bit broader. For a moment Harry and Katie looked at each other. Then Harry pointed to himself and crawled forward. He wasn't sure if he should call for the girl, since she was obviously looking at something.

He reached for her ankle. As soon as he touched it the girl whipped her body around and pointed her wand to him. He smiled when he saw it was Daphne, but she frowned: 'Merlin! Harry, you scared the crap out of me!'

'Sorry.' He replied while beckoning for Katie to join them, 'I wasn't sure if I should call you. What were you looking at anyway?'

'Nothing really. Just trying to make sense of the situation you know?' She answered.

Now Harry frowned, somehow Daphne sounded a bit different from normal. After a short hesitation he asked: 'Yeah. Anyway, looking forward to our next date during the summer vacation?'

She looked bewildered. 'Yeah, of course. But why bring it up-'

His stunner effectively interrupted her answer. Next to him Katie chuckled: 'If that's how you treat her whenever you two agree on a date I might still have a chance. Why on earth did you do that?'

Harry shook his head. 'Something was off. And we agreed on a date in the week after the exams. She should have known that.'

'I hope you are right. If you just stunned your girlfriend there will be hell to pay.' Katie replied, still chuckling.

That thought had crossed Harry's mind as well. Almost reluctantly he took his victim's wand. A sigh escaped him. 'No. Look, Daphne has a yew wand. This one is… I'm not sure actually, not yew at least.'

Katie took it from him and studied it for a few seconds. 'Mahogany I think. Doesn't really matter anyway. So, what now? Tie her up and move on?'

'I guess.' Harry agreed, 'Although… can we change her back somehow? If we leave her like this one of ours might free her.' Beside that, he didn't really feel comfortable of tying up someone who looked like Daphne. He pointed his wand at her. 'Finite incantatem!'

Nothing happened. Harry tried to think of another spell but Katie said: 'It's most likely polyjuice potion. It will wear of soon, but I don't know how to reverse the effects. I can disillusion her if you want? It will only last some thirty minutes, but maybe the polyjuice will run out by then.'

'Can't see a better option.' Harry agreed, 'If they used polyjuice potion it means that they have already captured Daphne, right?'

'Guess so. But I'm sure she's alright.' Katie tried to reassure him. Harry simply nodded. Of course she was alright; his parents would never hurt her.

Again they moved on. And after a short while they heard a voice whispering: 'Harry, Katie.'

They looked around in surprise, and the voice continued; 'Above you.'

Looking up they saw Ron grinning at them. That grin quickly disappeared when Harry pointed his wand at him. He tried to think of a security question and eventually asked: 'What did I ask you at the end of the first week of our second year?'

Ron looked confused, but eventually found the answer. 'To see my rat?'

'Yeah, thanks. Get down here mate.' Harry replied.

The tall redhead did so and looked at both of them: 'Why did you need to ask that?'

'They are using polyjuice to look like us.' Harry simply replied. Then he looked back up the tree and asked: 'What were you doing up there anyway?'

'Trying to look around. Didn't really work though, too much leaves.' Ron answered, 'Anyway… Polyjuice? That changes the game. I take it you're sure about Katie?'

'No.' Harry admitted, 'But she had plenty opportunity to stun me from behind. So I guess she's really Katie.'

'Same for Harry.' Katie added.

'Right.' Ron nodded, 'So, any idea where we need to go?'

'Not a clue.' Harry admitted, 'We figured we should just keep heading North. That way we eventually reach the border of the area and can start circling or something.'

'Right.' Was all Ron had to say to that. The three of them moved on again. Eventually they did indeed reach a thin shimmering red wall and after a short discussion they decided to move back into the area on a South-western course. After a while Harry, who was leading, heard voices and raised a hand in warning to Ron and Katie. They carefully moved forward between the trees and saw a group of five gathered in a loose circle. Neville, Terry, Hermione and Ginny were listening to a fifth person who had their back turned to Harry and the others. Next to him Ron whispered: 'Who's that guy?'

Harry shrugged: 'No idea… Brownish hair, Justin I guess?' Just then the boy turned around and Harry gasped for air when he saw his own face.

Ron softly cursed and Katie commented: 'How did they make polyjuice for you? I mean, they never captured you.'

'Guess Sirius took a hair sometime.' Harry replied after a short pause. 'Problem is… How do we convince the others that he is a fake?'

'Stun first, explain later?' Ron suggested.

'Won't work.' Harry replied, 'They will enervate him before allowing us to explain.'

'Then what?' Katie wondered.

Harry thought about that for a few seconds. He considered summoning the impostor towards them, but wasn't sure how that would work out. Eventually he said: 'Only thing I can think of is move in and explain the others what's going on. Focus on shields, no offensive spells until they understand.'

Ron and Katie reluctantly nodded and followed Harry when he stood up. He summoned his strongest shield and moved forward. As soon as Hermione pointed to him he called: 'That Harry is a fake! I'm real, stun him!'

Hermione and the others looked confused while his double turned around and replied: 'No way. I told you guys about the polyjuice, Sirius must have gotten one of my hairs or something.'

Neville's wand already moved to Harry and he quickly called: 'Hermione is leading the second squad, Alicia the third.'

The impostor couldn't know that. Terry and Ginny both understood his meaning and immediately stunned the fake Harry. Surprisingly enough, Hermione and Neville immediately stunned them in return and then unleashed a storm of spells upon Harry, Katie and Ron. The three of them quickly jumped back to cover, but not before Harry summoned his double to him, just to get him out of enervate range.

Fake-Hermione and Fake-Neville did a good job and Harry and the other two barely had time to duck out of cover to shoot spells of their own. A stream of spells kept them down. Ron was the first one to get hit by a stunner, and he was just outside reach for both Katie and Harry. Seconds later, the enemy fire stopped. Harry was sure that the two impostors were simply waiting for one of them to move to Ron or show themselves. He looked at Katie and pointed his wand at his own head. He really had to learn that disillusionment charm sometime. At least Katie understood his meaning and disillusioned herself. Harry tried to follow her vague outline, but it was impossible in the moonlight. However, suddenly she appeared again while firing spells to the clearing. He quickly jumped up to see what was going on and saw two of Katie's stunners slamming into Fake-Neville. Fake-Hermione was already down.

'What happened?' He asked Katie.

'No clue.' She replied, 'Hermione was already down when I stood up.' She wanted to say something else, but was interrupted when a loud gong signalled the end of tonight's training.

Harry shrugged before he walked over to Ron and enervated him. He quickly explained what happened and the three of them walked to Fake-Hermione and Fake-Neville. When they got there they were greeted by Fred, he and Alicia were just arriving from the left. 'Hey guys, tricky game today wasn't it? I even met someone who looked just like me.'

'Must have been awkward for you.' Harry grinned, 'I take it you took him out?'

'Nah, someone who looked like Justin took out both him and Susan, then chased the two of us into the forest before Susan took her down.' Fred replied.

'Yeah, and when we circled back both George and Susan were gone.' Alicia added. 'So we walked around a bit until we saw you talking with the other Harry. When the fight started I figured we had to wait a bit before attacking. The Neville-look-alike still managed to stun me though.'

'It makes me wonder if we were the last three standing.' Katie said.

'That would be a rather bad result.' Harry grimaced. They had been wiped out during a few earlier practice sessions. But usually if they managed to win they only lost two or three people. Which was still too much of course.

Meanwhile Ron and Fred had been enervating Terry, Ginny and the three impostors. Harry looked at his own double, who suddenly morphed into Tonks. 'Wotcher Harry. I take it Terry and Ginny stunned me?'

'Yeah. I didn't know you could change into a man?' Harry replied.

Tonks shrugged. 'Well, I can't change the… ehm, plumbing. But as long as you don't walk around naked I'll manage.'

'Now that's an interesting idea.' Ginny quipped from behind him.

Fake-Hermione and Fake-Neville drank some kind of potion which turned them back into Lily and Remus before they all took a portkey to today's safe zone. Where they found Timmy, Jenny and Dobby manning, or elfing, a strange control panel below seven large monitors. Harry looked at it in wonder and his father explained: 'It's the system that will be used during the third task. Tonight was the final test round. As far as I know it worked very nice. Although I've only been here for the last fifteen minutes or so.'

'Yeah it did.' Daphne showed up next to Harry and he gave her a quick one-armed hug. She smiled at him. 'I was one of the first to get here. I actually ran into Tonks and she stunned me when I walked up to her. It was good to see that you didn't get fooled by Alice though. How did you know it wasn't me?'

Harry shrugged. 'She was a bit off in her movements and in the way she talked. So I asked her about our next date.'

'Nice one.' Daphne replied, 'I guess we all will need to think of some kind of password or so.'

'Yeah, same for us.' James agreed, 'It was rather silly to see Tonks, Lily and Remus walking around with Terry and Ginny. I guess they all thought they were outnumbered one to four.'

Harry grinned. 'So, how did you, Frank and Sirius lose your cover?'

James smiled. 'Luna saw right through Sirius' and Frank's polyjuice. No clue how she did it, but Hannah and Neville immediately trusted her judgement and the three of them surprised Frank and Sirius. Remus and I charged them from behind though. Then Remus took of on his own as Neville and I wandered around a bit. Eventually I ran into Justin, who was still on his own. So I took him out, polyjuiced myself and then ran into a group of four.'

Lily took charge and immediately all other discussions died down. 'All right everybody. I think we learned some valuable lessons tonight. I heard several people talking about passwords or security questions to make sure the person you encounter is a friend. Any other suggestions?'

'I was going to ask Fred, George and Hermione to think about some tracking device to add to our mirrors or basilisk suits.' Harry suggested. The three of them immediately grouped together and were quickly joined by Tracey, Frank and Remus. Lily looked like she wanted to join them as well. Harry grinned, he was sure that by the start of next school year there would be some kind of tracking system.

'Good idea, Harry.' His mother nodded, 'Anyone else? If not, we'll send you back to Hogwarts. Good luck with the exams! And we will see you around during the third task, since our elves will be the ones operating the camera system.'

_A/N: Bit of a slow update again. I'm afraid that real life is still crazy. Not that I'm complaining, I'm enjoying it a lot in fact;) But it takes time away from writing fanfiction. Anyway, slowly moving to the more interesting years__ Harry is showing more and more of his power, but I'll try not to make him some kind of superhero. _


	64. The third task

**The third task**

Once again, the DA's inner circle had split up in three groups before heading to the stands that surrounded a Triwizard test. And once again Harry found himself seated between Daphne, Neville, Hermione, Susan and Tracey. He had waved to his parents, who were standing in front of a small wooden cabin. In there Timmy, Jenny and Dobby were manning the magical camera system which would show the three champions on big screens during their journey through the maze. Neville's parents and Remus were also inside the cabin. While Tonks and Amelia were part of the rather extensive number of aurors that were positioned around the stands. Minister Fudge was one of the guests tonight. He seemed to spend most of his time talking to a small squat woman who was dressed in horrible pink clothes.

Yesterday, Harry's mother had called him on his mirror. Once again, she argued that they all should be on guard. She was worried that Voldemort would try something during the third task. Of course, Harry could have argued that she had felt the same for the first two tasks. And as far as he knew nothing had happened. But it was much easier to simply wear his disillusioned basilisk armour to the task. His mother could be rather stubborn. The only bad thing was that he couldn't hug Daphne now. Or well, he could, but it wasn't any fun and made a lot of noise. Still, he couldn't see Voldemort arriving in the middle of a large number of aurors and in front of Dumbledore, who was apparently the only wizard that he ever feared.

Of course, his mother had also felt the need to tell him not to ignore his exams. But since history of magic had been the only exam they still had to do at the time Harry didn't really care. He felt rather sure that he had scored a passing grade, but the subject was too boring to really go for an O. Or better, the teacher was too boring. He guessed it was quite an achievement to make bloody goblin revolutions sound boring, but Binns had managed it.

He shook his head and focused on the third and final task of the Triwizard tournament. His friends had been debating who was going to win. All of them felt Cedric had the best chance. And Harry was happy to add his vote to the Hogwarts champion who was currently in the lead as well. Of course, Krum was only five points behind, and he had no clue how many points could be earned today. But Cedric was a nice guy, and the Hogwarts champion. So that was reason enough to support him.

They kept on chatting about the task, happily guessing what kind of obstacles would be in the maze, until Ludo Bagman's voice silenced the stands. 'Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you how the points currently stand! In first place, on eighty-five points, Mr. Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts School!' the cheers and applause were deafening. 'In second place, on eighty points, Mr. Viktor Krum of Durmstrang Institute! And in third place, Miss Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons Academy!' the applause for the other two champions was still loud, but lacked the energy of the greeting that Cedric had received.

'At my whistle, Mr. Diggory will be the first one to enter the maze.' Bagman explained, 'Mr. Krum and Miss Delacour will follow shortly after. Both of them will still have a fighting chance to find the Goblet of Fire in the centre of the maze and earn themselves the title of Triwizard champion and a thousand galleons!' He had to pause when another huge wave of cheers and applause drowned his voice. When it died down he brought a small whistle to his mouth and blew it.

Cedric ran into the maze. Harry wasn't the only one to immediately look at the three large screens above the maze, but they were still dark. Soon, the whistle sounded again and Krum followed Cedric into the maze. After a slightly longer pause Fleur also made her way in. Only when she vanished into the towering hedges did the three screens spring to life, showing all three champions running between hedges.

Cedric was the first to run into trouble. Although the small group of goblinlike creatures known as Red Caps barely slowed him. He confunded them and they started to attack each other while Cedric ran past them. A while later Fleur seemed to be walking on the ceiling while surrounded by an odd golden mist. And for a few seconds she was focusing on keeping her skirt down, or up, well to stay decent at least. Then she closed her eyes and moved forwards, which saw her crashing down on her knees. She looked around in wonder for a moment before moving on again. Krum seemed to have picked the easiest route so far. He only had to jump over a group of lobsterlike creatures, which Hermione identified as mackled malaclaws. Apparently, their bite would give the victim bad luck for a week. Which would of course be rather bad for Krums chances during the task.

However, even without additional bad luck Krum was the first one to run into a major problem. He encountered a majestic female sphinx, that talked to him for a while. Krum sat down with a thoughtful expression while Harry and many others complained that they couldn't hear the sphinx's riddle. However, their attention focused back to Cedric when he encountered a huge creature that vaguely resembled a scorpion.

'Merlin! What is that?' Hermione exclaimed.

'A blast-ended skrewt.' Neville replied, 'You know? One of Hagrid's pets that I kept complaining about.'

'Oh, right. I didn't know they were this big!' Hermione admitted while Cedric's spells harmlessly bounced of the creatures' thick armour, 'So, you know how to stop them?'

'Our magical creatures class decided it was best to avoid them.' Neville shrugged.

'Seems Cedric reached the same conclusion.' Tracey dryly added when Cedric turned and ran for his life. The monster only followed him a few steps before returning to its starting position. Harry focused on the other screens again and just noticed the sphinx stepping aside for Krum. Fleur was still running and he overheard a few third-years in front of him talking about the boggart that she had just dispatched. He was going to ask them about it when Daphne suddenly gasped for air and half the stands started to scream.

Cedric had somehow found a way around the blast-ended skrewt and was now running fast. However, he lacked the advantage of an airborne camera and never noticed the huge spider running on an intersecting path until it crashed right into him. 'An acromantula?' Tracey cried out, 'Are they insane?'

Nobody replied, instead they were all staring spellbound at the central screen where Cedric was now raised in the huge spider's front legs. It looked like he had dropped his wand, for he was futilely smashing his fists against the legs. Horrified, all the people in the stands stared towards the central screen. The acromantula slowly pulled Cedric closer to himself. Suddenly Hagrid appeared in front of the spider and forced it back. Cedric was dropped to the ground, dived for his wand and stood up with a hand on his heart. Harry could imagine that it was beating even faster than his own right now, it had been horrible to watch, let alone feel it.

Hagrid and Cedric exchanged a few words before the huge man offered Cedric an arm. Cedric took it and a second later the central screen disappeared while Hagrid and Cedric portkeyed out of the maze. 'A loud applause for Cedric Diggory, our brave Hogwarts champion who came very close to the goblet and final victory!' Bagman's voice bellowed through the stands. This time the applause for Cedric sounded more relieved than excited.

Eventually Harry looked at the two remaining screens again. Fleur seemed to be struggling through a large patch of devil's snare while Krum used some kind of orange fog to get rid of a swarm of doxies. As soon as the orange fog disappeared Krum suddenly perked up and sprinted forward. Again, the public screamed when the same huge spider tried to tackle Krum. But his seeker reflexes were up to the task and he managed to dive between two of its legs. He shot several spells over his back while sprinting to the cup, touched it and was portkeyed out of the maze.

For a few seconds everybody looked confused, but then Krum reappeared in front of the maze's entrance and Bagman shouted: 'Three hurrahs for our new Triwizard champion! Mr. Viktor Krum from Durmstrang!'

Everybody was jumping up and down the stands in celebration, although Harry managed to keep an eye on the one remaining screen where professors Flitwick and McGonagall were evacuating Fleur.

Bagman was reminiscing about Krum's actions during the first two tasks when Susan managed to make herself heard over the cheers. 'What's going on with the minister?'

Harry looked at her in wonder. Who cared about the minister anyway? But when Daphne pulled his arm he looked that way as well. Oddly enough the minister was surrounded by Amelia, Dumbledore, a large blackskinned auror whose head was heavily bandaged and the small woman in pink. All of them, beside Dumbledore, were frantically gesturing and shouting at each other. Eventually they stopped and a few seconds later all of the aurors disappeared. Only the bandaged auror remained behind. Tonks and Amelia were gone as well.

Dumbledore walked down the stands and was greeted by most of his teaching staff. Meanwhile Fudge pulled a large bag from below his seat and walked to Bagman, who was still excitedly talking about Krum's tournament. As soon as he noticed Fudge coming his way he changed his tune. 'And here is the minister of magic himself with Mr. Krum's award. Once again, let's hear it for our champion!'

Harry and the others politely joined the applause. But Harry was sure he wasn't the only one who was interested in the grimace on the minister's face when he shook Krum's hand. It looked almost eerie in the light that was provided by the flashlights of the press. He wondered what people would think of Fudge's expression when they received their newspaper tomorrow. More importantly, he wondered what was going on.

Harry saw Sirius walking towards the wooden cabin, where Neville's and his parents were patrolling rather nervously. Before he could think about heading that way the four heads started to direct their houses back to the castle. The headmasters of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang seemed to be doing the same. Harry didn't really like it when Daphne and Tracey joined their housemates to the dungeons. But he guessed they should be safe inside the castle and accompanied by the vast amount of first to third year Slytherin DA members.

Still, as soon as they reached the Gryffindor common room he led Neville, Susan and Hermione up to their dormitory while the other Gryffindors started a huge discussion about the third task. Once there he used his own mirror to call Daphne, who immediately answered. They quickly ensured that everybody was alright before Harry positioned the mirror in such a way that Daphne, and Tracey whose face replaced Daphne's every now and then, could join their talk. Meanwhile Neville had contacted his mother and was also positioning that mirror.

'So, what's going on?' Hermione asked.

'We're not entirely sure if anything is still going on.' Alice replied with a frown, 'Near the end of the task Kingsley Shacklebolt arrived at Hogwarts and stormed towards the minister and Amelia. A few minutes later Dumbledore joined them. From what Sirius heard from Dumbledore a large group of death eaters charged the ministry and swept the small auror squad that was on station away. Kingsley is one of the few survivors.'

'They've token the ministry?' Susan gasped.

Alice shook her head. 'No, just after the task finished an unspeakable showed up and told Fudge that the prophecy has been stolen. Of course, he meant the one about Voldemort and you, Harry.'

'Figures.' Harry grunted, he thought things over for a few seconds. 'Does it really make a huge difference though? He was coming after me already anyway. And if I remember correctly the rest of the prophecy didn't give too much away?' He looked to Hermione, who was much better at remembering exact wordings.

Hermione mulled it over for a few seconds. 'I guess it will make him even more determined to get you, Harry. And he might be a bit more careful about fighting you now. Both things we could have lived without. But I agree, it's not like he just won the war or something.'

Alice raised an eyebrow. 'I'm surprised you take it like that, Harry. Although Remus here actually reached the same conclusion. James figured it wouldn't matter as long as Voldemort didn't decide to visit a seer… Oh, and some good might come out of it actually. Dumbledore mentioned that prophecies can only be removed by the people involved. So he reasoned that Voldemort must have been in the ministry tonight.'

'What did Fudge say?' Susan and Daphne asked at the same time.

To their surprise Alice chuckled. 'He made the mistake of replying that Harry could also have removed it.'

'Why is that a mistake?' Harry wondered, 'I mean, the way you just told it he's right?'

'Yeah, I guess.' Alice nodded, 'But he said it in front of your mother.'

Harry grinned. 'Oops.'

'Yeah,' Susan smiled, 'So how's our minister doing now? Did he get turned into a pile of manure?'

Alice looked away from the mirror for a few seconds before she replied. 'No, Lily hasn't even pulled her wand yet as far as I can see. Although by now Fudge might prefer a crucio to Lily's tongue-lashing. I guess his pink clothes and green hairs are gifts of James or Sirius.'

All the kids laughed and Alice concluded. 'I just hope they put him back to normal before some ministry high-ups or some journalists show up. I'm all for ridiculing Fudge, but this is hardly the time. Anyway, I'll make sure we contact you if we know something more. Okay?'

They all nodded and Alice disappeared from Neville's mirror. The six of them exchanged a few looks before Susan said: 'I say we go back to the common room for now and pretend nothing happened. Although I can't imagine that we're the only one who noticed that something was wrong.'

'You're in the wrong house.' Tracey dryly replied, 'Over here nobody is talking about the tournament right now.'

'Guess so.' Susan smiled, 'Although the hat only considered Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff for me until I forced it to put me into Gryffindor.'

Both Slytherin girls managed to look in Daphne's mirror at the same time and both wore the same surprised expression. Harry just grinned at them and said: 'See you tomorrow Daphne. Night!'

_A/N: So, did I misjudge the importance of the prophecy? I think the first two lines that Voldemort already knew about were the most important anyway. Still, in canon Dumbledore tries to defend it and Voldemort risks a lot to actually get it. Of course, Voldemort didn't know what it said and Dumbledore might have used it as a distraction. But I honestly can't see how Voldemort is going to benefit from his new knowledge. Well, beside the remarks that Hermione made. I don't see him suddenly starting to understand the 'power he knows not'._

_Anyway, our favourite dark lord is finally on the move ;)_


	65. Last days of school

**Last days of school**

Harry and Daphne had found a secluded spot at the far side of the lake. They had enjoyed a nice meal together and now Daphne was lying against Harry in peaceful silence. Harry occasionally stared to the spot where her shirt was crawling up and the tantalizing bit of skin that showed there. With all exams out of the way most students were wearing muggle style clothing instead of their uniforms. And Harry thought it looked great on Daphne. Lying contently at the lakeside, with his girlfriend half on top of him, he could almost forgot about Voldemort and death eaters and all that. Although his eyes did drift to the open marauder's map next to him almost as much as they drifted to Daphne. Only inside Lionfire Hall would he allow himself to fully relax. So far, no one had come even close to them. He hoped it stayed that way, he was enjoying himself. For a fleeting moment he wondered what he would have used the marauder's map for if he didn't have Voldemort looming over him.

Eventually, it was Daphne who broke the silence: 'This is nice. We should do things like this more often. You know? Just the two of us.'

'Definitely,' Harry agreed, 'But it's so hard to find some free time. With everything that's going on.'

'Yeah,' Daphne lazily nodded. 'I actually got a letter from my father earlier today. Seems Fudge is still denying that Voldemort is back.'

'Moron.'

'Yeah. Dad says more and more wizengamot members are starting to complain though. He isn't sure how many of them understand that Voldemort has returned, but a huge number of them doesn't like it that several aurors died during the third task.' Daphne explained while moving into a more upright position.

Harry frowned. 'Well, it would be odd if they didn't worry about that. Right?'

'I think so. Dad and madam Longbottom actually made a list of all the people who seemed not to care. He seems to think it's not enough proof to call them death eaters, but it is suspicious at least.'

'Hmhm.' Harry agreed with his eyes closed. He knew this was important, but it was hard to care about it right now. He would prefer to go back to hugging his girlfriend and enjoying the afternoon. Beside that, he never really cared about politics. It took to long, he preferred actual battlefields. Which was probably stupid. 'I bet Malfoy didn't care.'

'That's an easy one,' Daphne snorted, before she suddenly changed the topic. 'You know, you never really told me about the prophecy. Well, beside those two lines that Voldemort already knew.'

He reluctantly opened his eyes and found Daphne staring at him. For a few seconds he wanted to say that he had to ask his parents if he could share the prophecy with her, but then he reconsidered. He was old enough to make decisions on his own, right? And Voldemort knew all about the prophecy by now anyway. Beside that, Daphne had already known occlumency when they started working on it and had only improved. So eventually he asked: 'Are you sure you want to know it? I mean, maybe you want to run away from me when you know.'

'Unlikely. I can't see how it can be worse than the part I already know.'

He shrugged. 'Alright then. It goes like this: The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the dark lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.'

Daphne actually shivered. 'I don't like that last line. Do you know what it means?'

'My parents actually went to a seer. And he said that he didn't think it had to be taken literally.' Harry shrugged, 'If I remember correctly he warned them not to try if I really couldn't be killed by anyone else.'

'Yeah, I agree,' Daphne chuckled, 'But how do you think Voldemort will take it?'

'Well, if he wants to try it he can ask one of his followers to shoot him with a killing curse I guess,' Harry smiled, 'Still, unlikely to happen I guess.'

'It would surprise me,' Daphne dryly replied, 'But what I meant was… do you think he will come after you? Even more I mean? Or maybe stay away from you instead?'

Harry blinked. 'I figured he would keep coming after me. Why would he stay away?'

'Well, if someone told me I could only die in one way…' Daphne shrugged and Harry nodded. He guessed that made sense, but somehow he had the feeling Voldemort would not see it that way. Especially since Harry would only grow stronger in the next few years. So Voldemort was more likely to try and strike as soon as possible. Before Harry could explain his reasoning Daphne asked: 'What was the line before that again?'

He had to think about it a few seconds. Somehow, he always thought about the whole prophecy, so it was hard to recite just one line. 'And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the dark lord knows not.'

'How did he mark you as his equal?' Daphne wondered.

'Apparently by coming after me when I was a baby,' Harry replied, 'I always thought it was weird as well. But I guess that Voldemort's focus on the whole prophecy does somewhat mark me as his equal?'

'Maybe,' Daphne somewhat agreed, 'This power that the dark lord doesn't know about sounds good though. Any idea what it is?'

Harry hesitated, but decided he didn't want to keep secrets from Daphne. 'Well, the seer made a guess, although I sometimes feel he can't be right about this… Anyway, ever heard of the deathly hallows?'

Daphne actually laughed. 'Oh, come on! You're kidding me?' She saw Harry's surprised look. 'What? Really? That's just a fairy tale.'

Harry smiled. 'You know that invisibility cloak of me? Has been in the family for generations.' He waited a few seconds until he saw understanding dawn in her eyes. It didn't take her too long to work out the fact that most invisibility cloaks stopped functioning after a few years. 'And my mother is keeping the resurrection stone safe for me until I manage to get the wand.'

'Right.' Daphne slowly replied, 'It makes no sense, but let's say I believe you. So, I take it you know where the wand is as well?'

'Yeah. Problem is that I have to defeat its owner in a fight.'

She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly wide. 'Please don't tell me it's Voldemort's wand?'

'No. Dumbledore has it.' Harry quickly replied.

'Pfew.' She breathed, before shaking her head. Which made her long hairs tickle his face. 'You have to defeat Dumbledore? That's almost as bad.'

'Yup.' He cheerfully replied, although he privately agreed. He had no idea how he was going to manage that. By now, he felt he was reasonably able to fight against Sirius on equal footing. But from what he had heard and seen of the headmaster so far that would be a way different level.

'You said you didn't agree with the hallows thing?' Daphne prodded on.

Harry was silent for a long time. He felt a bit uncomfortable to disagree with a real seer about something as vague as a prophecy. But eventually he said: 'Well, from the first line… "the one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches"… doesn't it sound like whatever power they mean should be part of me? Instead of some items I have to find?'

He watched closely for her reaction. He had been fooling around with this idea for a few months now, but a small voice in his head just kept telling him that he wanted to make himself more important. So he had never discussed it with anybody else. Eventually Daphne nodded. 'That actually makes sense. Although I admit that I don't know a thing about divination. Anyway, if not the hallows, then what power? I mean, I know you are amazingly powerful for someone our age. But it hardly seems "the power he knows not", or however you said it.'

'I don't know.' Harry admitted.

She looked at him, clearly in deep thought. 'What do you have that makes you powerful? And that Voldemort doesn't know about?'

After a few seconds Harry tried: 'You?'

She smiled at him while shaking her head. 'I hardly think your girlfriend will be the reason that you can bring down Voldemort. But if he ever gets close to you I'll try my hardest.'

Harry chuckled. 'I suppose it's useless to try and keep you out of danger?'

'Damn right,' she smiled, 'Although I'm surprised that you realize that. I somewhat expected some brave and noble nonsense about keeping me safe.'

Harry shrugged. 'You know my mother and my two female friends.'

'Fair enough,' Daphne smiled, 'But how-' she frowned when Harry raised his hand.

'Can we go back to just enjoying the afternoon? I was having such a good time.'

She smiled again, 'Of course, I'm sorry.'

'Don't be. It's important and all that.' Harry quickly said, 'But I just want to enjoy some more time with you instead of talking about the war.'

Daphne nodded and snuggled up to him again. 'Maybe we can do something fun during the summer? Beside camp and all that I mean, just the two of us.'

'Maybe.' He agreed after a last look on the map.

_A/n: I thought it was time for a bit of Harry/Daphne time. At first I was planning to add something about a date during the first days of the summer vacation, but it didn't really work out. Maybe I'll write one at the end of the summer._


	66. Preparing for Umbridge

**Preparing for Umbridge**

'Hey, Daphne!' Harry smiled when his girlfriend came walking to him. They barely had seen each other during the regular Summer camp, it had been way too busy. By now over a hundred students came to Lionfire Hall for a week filled with fun and magical training. Once again, Harry had really enjoyed it, but he had to admit that he had felt some relief when the vast majority of students left for home earlier today. Only the inner circle stayed behind for another week. Since it was still a somewhat secret group all inner circle members had joined the other students on their way home, only to floo back to Lionfire Hall later. Daphne was the first one to return, as far as Harry knew at least.

'Hey, Harry,' she answered, 'How are you? It's almost like you were avoiding me last week. Beside those few miniature games.'

'Oh, no! Not at all. I was just really busy. My parents decided that I was old enough to help them a bit. So they directed many of the younger students and their questions to me,' Harry grimaced.

'Oh? They think you're all grown-up now?' Daphne smirked.

'Not really. In fact, they were a bit upset that I told you about the Hallows.'

Daphne nodded. 'Yeah, it somewhat surprised me that you told me. I mean, after I thought about it for a few days. But what does that have to do with you helping during camp?'

'Well, I told them I was old enough to decide what to tell you,' Harry shrugged. His mother hadn't agreed. But dad had actually come to his aid arguing that he had known Lily was the one while he was younger than Harry now.

'Ah, I see. They figured that in that case you were old enough to help them out a bit?' Daphne nodded with a knowing smile.

'Exactly. It was pretty fun actually, working with those new first-years and a few of the second-years. I think that between all the younger siblings of our current DA members I know half of the new students already. Just didn't leave me much time for myself,' Harry replied, 'Anyway, we should probably head to the garden. I think mum wants to start the meeting as soon as everybody arrived.'

Sure enough most people had already arrived when Daphne and Harry entered the garden arm in arm. They took seats between Hermione and Remus, who had once again brought Tonks to the meeting. The two were happily chatting about their vacation to Italy, which they would depart for after this week. Harry chose to listen to Hermione and Daphne instead, who were talking about last week's events.

After a short while everybody else had arrived. His own parents, Neville's parents, Sirius, Remus and Tonks were the adults and all sixteen inner circle members formed the teenager part of the meeting. As usual, Lily started the meeting while Jenny and Dobby were handing out cold drinks to everybody. 'Good afternoon all. Good to have you here again. We have three main subjects for today. First, we're going to talk about Voldemort and what happened during the third task. Then we'll move on to next years defence teacher. Both subjects were purposely avoided during the first week of Summer camp because the group was too large to take any risks. After that I want to say something about what we're going to this week.'

She looked around for questions. Nobody said anything so she continued: 'Right. Voldemort, what did you guys hear about what happened?'

'Well, the Prophet claimed that death eaters attacked the ministry and killed several aurors. But the ministry assured them that nothing had been stolen or destroyed,' Ginny replied. 'Of course, on the same day the Herald published a large story about how a prophecy involving Voldemort was stolen. I'm not sure, but I guess it's the same one that was mentioned when we joined this group?'

'Right in one, Ginny,' Sirius smiled. 'As usual, the Herald is a lot closer to the truth. What you forgot to mention is that they also explained that Voldemort should have been among the death eaters to remove that prophecy.'

Ginny shrugged. 'Sure, but we already knew he was back.'

'Yeah, but it's important that more and more people at the ministry and the Wizengamot are starting to see the signs,' Sirius explained. 'Last week, Fudge actually approved a plan to increase the auror budget by 200%. I think he is still too stupid to see what's going on, or maybe he does it for the wrong reasons, but it's an important step anyway.'

'I still don't understand why Fudge is still the minister,' Justin spoke up, 'I'm sure that if the muggle minister acted so stupid loads of people would be calling for him to step down.'

The adults looked at each other for a while. Eventually it was James who tried to explain. 'The problem is that wizarding politics are ridiculously complicated. We're still not sure if our group is strong enough to first remove Fudge and then elect a good new minister. What you have to realize is that whatever group moves to remove the current minister will be watched by the other groups. In short, if we manage to get rid of Fudge, we would support madam Bones as the new minister. But others would wonder if we, as the minister-removing group, are trying some kind of coup. And would be inclined to support any candidate but ours. Right now, we believe that if we move to sack Fudge and succeed Malfoy might very well be the next minister.'

Several people started to protest, but James cut them off. 'I'm not saying that it's totally sure. But as long as we do not have a total majority in the Wizengamot it could happen. Fudge might be a fool, but we do not believe him to be a death eater. The best thing would be if Fudge steps down himself, then our support for madam Bones would not raise any eyebrows and others would likely vote for her as well.'

'It would also help if some of the death eaters in the Wizengamot made their alliances known,' Sirius took over, 'If Malfoy and a few of his cronies would be kicked out of the Wizengamot we would have a much better shot.'

'They still believe that Malfoy is not a death eater?' Tracey asked, 'I thought he simply bought his way in despite of that.'

'It's a bit of both, I think,' James shrugged helplessly.

'What you have to realize is that most wizards are sheep,' Lily added, 'They will believe that Voldemort didn't return, and that Malfoy isn't a death eater, simply because the ministry and the Prophet say so. And because it's easier. We're… I mean, the Herald is trying to break through that sheepish behaviour, but it's unlikely to happen before Voldemort moves into the public. In a way, things will be easier after that happens, although I wouldn't mind if he stayed below the radar for the rest of his life.'

Several purebloods looked confused at the word radar, but nobody asked about it. Instead Hannah asked: 'Do you have any idea what Voldemort is planning?'

'Terror, murder and destruction,' Lily dryly replied, 'But nothing specific no. We do not have a spy within the death eaters. That's why we, Dumbledore and the aurors all can only react to Voldemort's moves. It's far from perfect, but sadly it is the reality. We're almost finished with a device that will allow us to react faster, but that won't show us Voldemort's plans either.'

Hannah grimly nodded, and the next question came from Fred. 'So what you're saying is that death eaters or even Voldemort himself could suddenly show up at our doorstep?'

Lily hesitated, and it was Frank who replied instead: 'Most likely they will focus on attacking muggle families and villages first. Right now, even your family, with all its adult members part of the Order and all it younger members part of this group, can not openly move against Voldemort. Simply because he doesn't provide us with a target. So he's unlikely to go after you. However, it's a possibility.'

'What do we do if that happens?' George wanted to know.

'Fight if you can, run if you have to,' Sirius dryly replied.

'All of you, your parents and your brothers and sisters, have been added to the floo of Lionfire Hall. More specific, to the new floo point of Lionfire Cellar. Anyway, if the numbers are too great, or if Voldemort is among the attackers, run to us,' James added, 'You will arrive in a safe room below the house, but Timmy will quickly arrive to bring you to the house itself.'

'What about me? I mean, my parents don't even have a fireplace,' Justin wanted to know.

'Yes, they do,' James grinned, 'We explained it to them just before the Summer vacation and they had a fireplace installed a few days ago. I think they still believe we're crazy though. So you might want to use the floo a few times with them, just so they know what to do if things go wrong.'

Justin was clearly surprised, but Lily moved on. 'Sirius forgot to mention one thing. Fighting is good, as long as the odds are decent, but call for help as well. One of the few spells that we're going to teach you this week is a modified patronus charm that can carry messages.'

'Wicked!' Ron commented.

Lily smiled, 'Quite so. Beside that, we will show you a location that you can send the patronus to. I'll assure you that this location is always manned, or elfed I guess, right now Timmy is on duty.'

'How do we know when to fight and when to run?' Tracey wondered.

'There is no real answer to that,' Lily admitted, 'Basically, only fight if you feel sure that you have the advantage. Otherwise, take the safe way out that we provided. Last year, Daphne proved that you guys can stand up to death eaters. And you've only improved since that time from what Sirius told me,' Harry could almost feel the heat radiating from Daphne's cheeks, 'So you're not helpless. Far from it. But don't try to be heroic, it's better to run, find allies and then fight.'

'What happens if Lionfire Hall falls?' Terry asked.

'Then we're in very deep trouble,' James grinned, 'The safe room that you'll arrive in by floo also offers some crazy exits that are almost impossible to block by death eaters. Some of them lead to the other sides of the world. So flooing to Lionfire Hall will always be a viable option. Unless the death eaters somehow decide to dig over a hundred feet to find our safe room of course.'

'I would be really surprised if Lionfire Hall was taken,' Alice added, 'The wards and other defensive spells here are formidable, and all three Potters are formidable fighters. Beside that, they can easily summon reinforcements. Including this group, Dumbledore and the head of the DMLE. So, like James said, if Lionfire Hall falls I believe the game will be pretty much over.'

'Maybe. But let's not worry about possible doom scenarios,' Lily replied, 'The important things are that yes, Voldemort is on the move and that no, we have no idea what he's planning to do. And of course that all of you know that you can always floo to Lionfire Cellar if your own house is under attack. Make sure to tell your parents and siblings about it. Also make sure to tell them not to use that floo connection on a whim, because we will not accept social calls by it. We have our regular floo for that, and that one is still blocked to most people,' she looked at James. 'Did I forget something?'

'When did you ever?' James grinned.

'Only when it was about quidditch,' Lily smiled and James took over. 'Right, so about next year. Originally, the plan was that I would be your next defence teacher. But the ministry ruined that idea. Instead, you're getting Umbridge, a ministry clerk, to teach you.'

'What? Why?' several people wanted to know.

'Short answer: because Fudge is an idiot,' James replied, 'The longer answer is that after Daphne kicked some death eater ass last year Fudge somehow got the idea that Hogwarts is training an army to get rid of him.'

'He's half right,' Harry dryly replied.

'You're sort of an army yeah,' James grinned, 'Anyway, this is troublesome. Not only because you will have to wait at least one more year for my classes, but also because Umbridge is unlikely to allow DA meetings.'

'What?' again several people cried out.

'Yes. We actually thought about pulling Harry out of Hogwarts instead of wasting a year with a clumsy dada teacher,' James replied to Harry's surprise. Nobody had told him about that. 'But it seemed a bit extreme. Anyway, we already have Dumbledore looking for a safe location where this group can meet and train one evening a week. It's important for you to work together at least that much. After all, several of you will leave Hogwarts after this year.'

'Beside that, we wanted to ask you to run a weekly DA session in your common rooms,' Alice added, 'We realize that this is easy for the large number of Gryffindors, but what about the others? Hufflepuff?'

Justin and Hannah looked at each other. Eventually Hannah said: 'I'm sure we will manage. And Ernie, Megan and the others will probably help us.'

'Good, Ravenclaw?'

Luna and Terry also looked at each other. Terry seemed a bit doubtful about teaching together with Luna, but he shrugged: 'We'll manage as well.'

'Right, and I guess Slytherin might be the most difficult one,' Alice concluded.

Daphne and Tracey had actually been whispering behind Hermione's back. Now they turned back to Alice and Daphne explained, 'We think we can do it. Especially if we tell the other higher years that the younger Slytherins need this training to stand up against the other houses. The sixth and seventh years usually leave us alone anyway. And with Malfoy out of the picture none of our own class is really a problem.'

'If you want to I can ask Severus to help you?' Lily asked.

Again the two Slytherin girls looked at each other. 'That might be a good idea,' Tracey admitted.

'Right. Good to see that you are all ready to do this. With a bit of luck the ministry will soon retreat from Hogwarts again and then we can go back to regular DA meetings,' James concluded.

'That brings us to our last subject of today,' Lily nodded, 'Tomorrow, we're starting a tournament that will keep running all week.'

'The only rule is that there are no rules,' Sirius happily added.

Lily frowned at him. 'That's not entirely true. No unforgivables, although you can use the mock Avadra that we used during training every now and then. And no other hexes or curses that might result in death or lasting injury. Beside that, use every trick that you can think of.'

'We'll be working with double elimination. In other words, you're out when you lose two games. Not after losing your first match,' Frank added, 'There will be four matches going at a time during the first few days. Arena's will change randomly between matches.'

'And I'm your honoured referee,' Tonks cheerfully added. 'Mainly because I'm not allowed to duel minors as an auror.'

'Oh, and again there will be prize support for the first three. And for the most spectacular loss,' James finished.

Everybody looked excited and ready to start the tournament right now. There were several groans when Lily announced that the rest of this day would be used to practise the modified patronus.

_A/N: Sorry about the way too slow update. Rl is still kinda crazy, and while I try to make some time for fanfiction every week I wasted last weeks fanfiction time on working out a plan for another story. I'm not going to start it before I finish this one, but I had this idea and wanted to write down a few points before I forgot them. Of course, I planned to do this in five minutes and eventually wasted several hours on it :D_

_Anyway, question for you guys. Next update will of course be about the tournament. Any preferred opponents for Harry? You can pick all of the inner circle DA members and James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Frank and Alice. Tonks obviously can't compete as a referee._


	67. The tournament

**The tournament**

Harry and all the others gathered in a large semicircle around Tonks, who was waiting for them in front of the quidditch field. As soon as everybody arrived she started talking: 'Wotcher, everybody! There were some questions about the tournament, so let me explain a few things before we start. As you can see, the quidditch pitch has been divided in four rectangular areas. We will have four duels going at the same time. I created random pairings for the first round,' she whipped her wand around and a list appeared in front of them. Harry quickly searched for his own name and found himself in match seven, paired to Terry. 'I know some of the pairings seem unfair,' Tonks continued. 'But you can hardly expect fair fights in reality. Anyway, as you can see I only made a schedule to the second round. After that, it depends a bit on how many people lose two games in a row. They will still be duelling by the way, just outside of the main tournament. Oh, and lastly, the adults are not participating for the prizes. Whoever of you kids ends highest can pick first.'

There were some cheerful replies to this. Tonks waited for silence and then concluded: 'Right, as you know our only rule is: no spells that cause lasting damage. Good luck, and the first four duels can start when you guys find your spots and you hear my whistle.'

Tonks immediately ran towards a raised platform from which she would be able to look to all four duels. The others, beside the eight duelists, walked to a group of chairs on the side of the quidditch field. Harry sat down next to Daphne, Neville and Tracey. Hermione and Susan were moving to the pitch. Hermione was facing Sirius while Susan had to fight against Ginny. Next to them James and Frank were shaking hands and on the far side Justin and Hannah were going to make sure that at least one Hufflepuff would win during the first round.

As soon as Tonks' whistle sounded chaos erupted all over the field. Harry tried to look at every duel, Hermione's fight against Sirius most of the time. Hermione was good, and she kept transfiguring small animals to hinder Sirius' stronger spellwork, but in the end she couldn't last and a stunner took her out. Susan needed a lot more time before she finally managed to hit Ginny. The smaller redhead had been dodging like a maniac while returning fire with vicious hexes. Hannah's and Justin's duel was tame by comparison, but Justin finished it with a nice chain of disarming spells. However, the fight between his father and Frank was the one that got most of his attention. The two men were hurling hexes and curses at each other at breakneck speed. Somehow, both of them still managed to transfigure vast armies of large predators and animated statues who met each other halfway their area. Harry had never seen his father using transfiguration during a duel before, but it looked very cool. Maybe he had to start working on it as well. James' statues managed to overpower Frank's predators. When Frank had to start destroying the statues by wand James quickly took him out.

Tonks used a few minutes to talk with each set of duelists, most likely to give some hints and tips, before she waved for the next set of fighters to move on to the pitch. Harry shook hands with Terry before moving to the other side of the pitch. They were flanked by Fred and George on one side and Daphne and Ron on the other side, who were flanked by Harry's mother and Luna in turn.

As soon as Harry heard the whistle he launched a storm of spells at Terry. He knew that Terry was a tough opponent if you allowed him to build his defences. However, it seemed that Terry didn't need that much time and Harry softly cursed when all his spells bounced harmlessly away from a shimmering golden dome. It looked like Terry was focusing on his defence again; Harry could easily dodge the few weak spells that were sent his way. However, after five minutes of sending hexes and curses against the golden dome Terry didn't show any signs of fatigue. Harry figured he had to think of something else. He transfigured a few bulldogs, that were easily destroyed by Terry. But at least it forced him to act instead of just holding his shield. Harry levitated a few rocks and banished them towards Terry, again the Ravenclaw reacted with a few well aimed counterspells. A few seconds later he somehow created a whirling circle of rocks in front of his own shield. Harry frowned and took some time to think, Terry wasn't attacking him anyway. Apparently the Ravenclaw was somewhat worried about physical objects heading towards his golden shield. That meant… he concentrated and conjured a large heavy rope behind Terry. He added two heavy wooden blocks on both sides and then suddenly summoned both blocks to him. Terry was still trying to figure out what he just did when the rope crashed into the back of his knees and he tumbled backwards. The golden dome shimmered away and Harry quickly blanketed Terry with stunners. Then he vanished the rope and the wooden blocks just before they crashed into him.

He carefully walked over to Terry and summoned the other boy's wand just to be sure. As soon as he did so the large blue dome that had surrounded them after Tonks' whistle disappeared. Harry guessed that meant their duel was over and he quickly enervated Terry. He wanted to say something about the duel, but Terry looked past him in wonder. He turned around and saw a huge army of orange cats fighting an equally huge army of black cats. Fred and George kept sending new groups of cats to the front, where a whirlwind of fur and claws and teeth was already raging around.

'Amazing, isn't it?' Daphne said when she suddenly showed up, followed by Alicia, Lily and Luna. 'Although I have to keep telling myself those aren't real cats.'

'I guess,' Harry replied, 'Although it doesn't look too effective. Would make a great distraction though.'

'As soon as I saw that those clowns were paired together I knew something like this was going to happen,' Alicia dryly commented.

Harry grinned. She had a point. 'So, who won in your matches?' He asked the females.

'I did,' Daphne smiled, 'But it was very close. Alicia used a few nasty bludgeoners.'

'And I won as well,' Lily added, 'Although Luna offered me a lot more trouble then I expected. It is almost impossible to predict her actions.'

Luna didn't comment, she just kept staring to the cat-massacre. For once, she was joined by the others. It took more than twenty minutes before the orange cats managed to get the upper hand and George claimed a victory.

Again, Tonks had a short talk with each set of fighters. When she arrived at Harry and Terry she smiled to Harry: 'Nice trick with the rope Harry. I think you did pretty good all around, but I noticed that you took some time to think of a solution. You won't have that time during a real fight.'

'I know,' Harry nodded, 'But I figured it was useless to waste more energy by directly attacking that shield.'

Tonks turned to Terry. 'Yeah, about that shield. Pretty impressive! I remember when our instructor showed it to us during auror training, most of us didn't manage it. Let alone as well as you just did. But you really have to work on your offence, you're never going to win a duel like this.'

'I know,' Terry blushed, 'But it doesn't really matter to me. This is my talent, and in an actual fight I can use it to buy time or protect others while they focus on attacking. This tournament is only for practise after all, right?'

'Uh, I guess,' Tonks replied, clearly surprised. 'But there are some prizes, you know?'

Terry just shrugged and Tonks shook her head before walking to Fred and George. Harry wondered what she was going to tell them, but they had been warned to keep Tonks' tips secret during the tournament.

During the last round Neville got destroyed by his own mother. Not that Neville was doing bad, but his mother was simply stronger and she knew all his tricks too well. It was the same in the fight between Remus and Ron, although here the difference was even bigger. Harry privately thought that Ron should have tried something crazy to even the odds a bit. But although Ron was a brilliant chess player and a more than decent fighter he lacked a specific talent to really turn the scales. The third and last fight of this round was more interesting. Tracey seemed to be a bit stronger and used a wider variety of spells, but Katie's ridiculously accurate return fire kept her out of balance just enough. Beside that, it seemed that the older girl had a bit more stamina. Eventually, she did manage to win.

Tonks did another round and then announced a two hour break before the second round was going to start. Harry and most of the others watched Remus' and Ron's annual chess match during the break and saw Ron taking revenge for his earlier defeat. The game ended with only six pieces in total remaining on the board.

When the second round started Harry found out that he had to immediately compete. He was faced against George and was somewhat prepared for another army of cats. But when the whistle sounded flashes of lights and explosions of sound suddenly filled the area inside the blue dome. He immediately jumped away from his starting position and tried to see George inside the pandemonium of colours. It was useless. Eventually he decided to still use the spell that he had wanted to use against the cat army. He randomly created a few large green clouds of sleeping gas. Of course, it was somewhat difficult when you didn't even see your opponent. But after his sixth randomly aimed cloud the colours and sounds suddenly ceased and a few seconds later the blue dome disappeared.

The other three matches had all been between an adult and a teenager. Sirius, James and Lily had defeated Susan, Justin and Daphne respectively. Harry teased his mother a bit about trying to scare his girlfriend until the second heat started.

Again, three adults won their duels. Frank and Remus made short work of Ginny and Katie, but Alice needed a lot of time to defeat Hermione. Who grumbled afterwards that she had been paired against two adults. Of course, after a short while she cheered up a bit when she realised it had been a great learning experience. The fourth duel saw Luna defeating Hannah by using modified patronuses that kept running around Hannah while shouting about nargles.

In the last set of three duels Fred did use the army of cats again to defeat his younger brother. Next to them Neville managed to simply overpower Tracey by moving to pointblank range and casting a continuous stream of spells. The third duel lasted for almost an hour before Alicia finally managed to find a gap in Terry's defence.

During the evening they watched a muggle movie called Star Wars, which shockingly enough some of the purebloods didn't know yet. The next day they met on the quidditch pitch again. After listening to a long excuse from Tonks about how she had to reschedule because of the people that dropped out already he learned that he had to face his father. It was his first match against an adult in the tournament, but he felt somewhat confident after all his practise matches against Sirius. Especially because Sirius had told him that James' used a similar fighting style and wasn't that much stronger than Sirius while they faced each other.

As soon as Tonks blew her whistle Harry charged forward while shooting spells at his father. He was surprised when two big humanoid statues suddenly blocked his path, but blew both of them to pieces. However, it had slowed him down and now he had to crouch down against the onslaught that his father unleashed. James even used a few of those fake killing curses so Harry had to carefully look which spells he could shield against and which he should dodge. He tried to conjure another rope and repeat his trick from the match against Terry, but his father had obviously prepared for it and the rope vanished before Harry could summon it. Meanwhile, curses and hexes were constantly flying between them. Every few seconds James conjured or transfigured another statue, which Harry had to destroy. Once or twice Harry conjured some of his own dogs, but James barely blinked while killing them. He wondered if he would be able to make moving statues as well, but he had no idea how to start, so he kept trying to overwhelm his father with direct fire. He just managed to kept his ground, until something heavy slammed into his side. He flew about four feet to his right and turned around to see the vague outline of a disillusioned statue advancing on him.

'Not fair,' he muttered. He took aim at the statue but suddenly his wand flew out of his hand. He reached for it, even tried a wandless summoning charm, but his father's expelliarmus was too strong. He looked back to the disillusioned statue and jumped back when he didn't see it anymore. A few seconds later his father joined him and said: 'I vanished it, Harry. Good show there, I'm sure that in a year or two you will simply overpower me.'

'Maybe,' Harry shrugged, 'I need to talk to Sirius though.'

'Huh? Why?'

'He told me your style was similar to his,' Harry replied.

James grinned. 'It used to be. But last year I have been broadening my repertoire, so to speak. Lily argued that I needed a bit more knowledge about other duelling styles before teaching DADA.'

'I guess she has a point,' Harry nodded, 'It's a shame that the ministry is interfering, I would love to learn more about transfiguration and animation during duels.'

'We have almost two months before the Hogwarts express,' James shrugged, then he turned. 'Hey Tonks, were we the last ones?'

'Yeah,' the cheerful auror nodded, 'And I'm not sure what to say to each of you. I think you're both better fighters than me. Harry, maybe you could think about some minor wards to warn you for tricks like that invisible statue. Just like James did against your rope.'

Harry shrugged. 'Sure, if you teach me how?'

'Eh, maybe some other time,' Tonks blinked before shooing them back to the stands.

He tried to pay attention to the second set of duels, but was somewhat distracted by Susan and Daphne talking about their own wins. Susan seemed to have had a rather straightforward fight against Justin, that she had won by using some dirty auror tricks. Harry made a mental note to ask her to show those tricks to the DA inner circle sometime. Daphne had faced George, who had once again tried to distract his opponent with loud explosions and flashes of light. She had simply disillusioned herself and waited for the right opportunity to surprise the searching George.

The only duel he really watched was the one between Remus and Alicia, where Remus won by making full use of his werewolf abilities to ignore some minor hits and to keep running around.

When all four duels were finished Tonks called for everybody's attention. 'Right, well done everybody. I made up the pairings for the next round. There are only three people that are yet undefeated. Two of them will be facing each other in match one: James and Lily,' there were some whistles and comments about the idea of man and wife fighting each other, but Tonks simply continued. 'In match two we have our other yet undefeated contestant. My very own Wolfie. He will be facing that mangy old dog Padfoot. Then in match three we'll see Harry against Daphne,' more whistles. 'Match four has Susan against Luna. And in the fifth and last match Frank and Alice will duke it out. That leaves Neville, but because I have an odd number I ran out of opponents for you Neville. So you have a bye.'

'Alright,' Neville nodded. Next to him Alicia immediately explained to him that this meant he was going to finish in the 'teenager top 3'.

Meanwhile Tonks continued: 'The six people that already were out of the tournament chose to do a free for all today instead of pairing up against each other. So, sit back and enjoy the show.'

Harry did just that. Usually he was always in the middle of a free for all. But it was entertaining to watch instead. He sniggered when Ron and Ginny decided to team up and were immediately attacked from three sides. Only after Ron went down did the temporal anti-Weasley alliance disband.

The fighting went on, but Harry was distracted by Daphne. 'Harry? I know that you usually hold back against me, but I want you to give it all against me. Okay?'

He turned to her. 'Why? I mean, you know I don't do it to protect you or something like that. It's just that this is a better way for you to learn. Sirius did the same to me when we started duelling.'

'Yeah, I know that,' she waved his argument away. 'But I worry about you. I mean, I know that you are very strong, but you'll have to fight Voldemort eventually,' Harry smiled when she used the name. He was still surprised when people flinched. She continued. 'And well, I want to experience your full power for once. Just to make sure that you have the power to defeat Voldemort.'

'Okay, I guess,' Harry said after a short pause. Although he already knew that he wasn't going to hurt her. 'You know that means you will just miss out on the awards, right?'

'It's not like I ever won against you when you held back. Maybe this will be in my advantage, you never know,' she shrugged, before she smiled up at him. 'Beside that, I'm sure my boyfriend would be nice enough to get the knight army for me. It has a lord riding a hippogriff! Although it doesn't really look like a real hyppogriff, I guess muggles don't really know them.'

Harry snorted but didn't reply before turning back to the ongoing fight. Of course he would. He had a girlfriend that wanted to play miniature games with him every now and then. If a lord riding a hyppogriff would make her want to play more often… well, he was not above a little bribery.

Somewhat surprisingly Ginny managed to win the free for all after attacking Hermione in the back while she was duelling Tracey. Tracey was clearly upset about the sneak attack and took too many risks while she attacked Ginny.

A few minutes later he found himself facing Daphne. The whistle had barely sounded when he sent two large bloodhounds to her while simultaneously raining down stunners on her. For a moment, he wondered if he should have tried his ropetrick again. But Daphne was already forced into defence. Her shield wasn't bad, but nowhere near Terry's, and it kept disintegrating under his rain of stunners. She did manage to vanish the two bloodhounds before falling though.

He walked over to Daphne and enervated her. 'Are you alright?'

'Yeah, thanks,' she nodded before frowning, 'I still think you went easy on me.'

'Not really, I couldn't think of a faster way to win this duel,' Harry replied. And he wasn't going to send bludgeoners and things like that against her. But in a one on one fight where no one could revive your opponent stunners were actually better anyway.

'I guess. Wow! Is that even allowed?' Harry followed Daphne's suddenly wide-eyed stare and saw his mother using a firewhip to rip a few statues apart. Suddenly Tonks showed up next to her and said something. The firewhip disappeared and the fight between Harry's parents went on. It was an amazing fight. Vast armies of statues and beasts where fighting against each other, and sometimes part of the armies seemed to turn against their owners. Meanwhile, James and Lily kept shooting spells at each other. Eventually luck decided the duel. Lily tripped over the debris caused by three exploding statues and James used her temporary distraction to bind her with magical ropes.

Their duel was the last to finish. Sirius had defeated Remus and Susan had managed to keep her sanity against Luna's wild array of spells. Frank and Alice gave a repeat performance of James' and Lily's duel, although somewhat less spectacular, while the other adults discussed something. After Alice defeated her husband Lily walked to the centre of the pitch and called: 'Since James is the only one still unbeaten and there are only three of you left with only one defeat we decided to end the tournament right now and focus on some more group fighting,' there were some disappointed groans, followed by polite applause for the winners. Lily continued: 'As you know, we were going to have an award for the person that lost in a most spectacular way. After a short discussion we selected Terry. His fabulous shields combined with his willingness to use this tournament for practise instead of for personal glory earned him a prize.'

Terry blushed very brightly when everybody started cheering for him. Daphne smiled when she heard that Harry had faced the toughest opposition and was allowed to pick first. Her smile became even brighter when he picked up the hippogriff-mounted lord.

_A/N: Always tough to find a balance between too long and too short when describing a tournament like this. But I hope you liked it;) Planning a bit of a fluff chapter to conclude the summer._


	68. Canada

**Canada**

'Ah, I think this is the best part of the park,' Daphne smiled from her inflatable tube that was slowly drifting through the 'lazy river'.

'Really?' Harry wondered, 'I think I preferred the slides. Although I admit this is nice as well.'

'Of course you did, you fly on a broom for fun,' Daphne replied after looking around to see if any of the muggle visitors were too close to them, 'And not only that, you make the craziest dives when you do that.'

'When Wood is your captain it's safer that way,' Harry chuckled.

'Yeah, whatever,' Daphne agreed before she closed her eyes and lied down on her tube again. 'I think we have to go back to the locker rooms to reapply our sun block charms soon. I'm starting to feel the heat.'

'Yeah, you're right,' he mumbled. He was getting drowsy from just floating on the artificial river while enjoying the Canadian sun. But he had promised his parents to stay alert, so he forced his eyes wide open again. For the umpteenth time that day he checked the disillusioned waterproof wand holder on his lower arm. And for the umpteenth time, it was just there.

A week ago, between grilling training sessions, he had celebrated his birthday together with all of the inner circle members and all other regular visitors of Lionfire Hall. He had really enjoyed it, but only today did he get the best present. He had once or twice, or maybe a few more times, mentioned to his parents that it was a shame that he couldn't take Daphne on a real date. At his birthday they had asked the two of them if they would like to go to a muggle amusement park together sometime. Harry and Daphne had immediately agreed, after a long explanation about how a muggle park would actually be safer for Harry Daphne's parents had also allowed their daughter to go.

During the next week he had wondered where everybody would go during the day. There was no sign of James, Lily, Sirius or Remus while Frank and Alice were babysitting. Well, if you considered gruelling training exercises for Harry, Daphne, Neville, Hermione, Susan and Tracey as babysitting that is. Today, only Daphne had showed up at Lionfire Hall. Seconds after she arrived Harry's parents showed up with a portkey which brought them all to Canada. Once there they actually used a timeturner to make sure to arrive at a large water park in the morning.

They had been somewhat confused at first, but Lily had explained how they figured that a muggle amusement park on the other side of the world should be relatively safe from death eaters. The time turner trick was just another security measure, if Lionfire Hall was monitored somehow death eaters would still think that Harry was there while he was actually enjoying time together with Daphne. Or actually, in fact, he was at Lionfire Hall right now as well. He had quickly decided not to work out the details of time travel after that confusing thought. Daphne had wondered how they had got their hands on one the ministry's rare time turners and had been quite surprised when Lily answered that the ministry didn't knew about this one. She had actually brought it up a few times during the time, wondering if Harry's parents had made it themselves or had bought it on the black market.

James had quickly explained the safety measures for that day, starting with their new waterproof disillusioned wand holders. Beside that, the adults had created a large circular ward around the park which should help them monitor any witch or wizard getting close to the park. They also were patrolling the corridor and urged Harry and Daphne to send them a patronus if something happened. James even said not to worry about keeping magic hidden from muggles, he would prefer to obliviate half the park instead of taking any risks. Lily had smiled at the alarmed look on Harry's face and assured him that it wouldn't be that bad. Even if the muggles saw a patronus they would most likely think they imagined it. And since they were in a water park it was unlikely that they had any video recorders with them. She mumbled something about waterproof photo cameras, but Harry figured that if anything threatened Daphne he wouldn't care about the statute of secrecy anyway.

The first half of the day had been totally free of danger though. Well, Daphne had considered some of the faster slides as dangerous. She had joined Harry on most of them anyway, except one called 'The Abyss'. Harry had really enjoyed that last one, which involved a free fall into darkness, but had only went twice. Daphne had urged him to go another time if he wanted, but he preferred to do things together.

Meanwhile they had reached the exit of the lazy river that was near the locker rooms and they offered their tubes to a family with two small kids before climbing out of the river.

'It's past noon already, maybe we should get something to eat? My parents did give me some Canadian dollars,' Harry suggested.

'Good idea,' Daphne replied while pulling on the strings of her bikini top once more. Harry still wasn't sure if her top wasn't comfortable or if she was trying to drive him crazy. He tried not to stare too much, although he was quite sure that he was failing horribly at that.

He did manage to convince Daphne to try a slice of pizza and coke though. It was often surprising how little she knew about the muggle world, after all her parents were far from pureblood fanatics. But apparently they had never brought their daughters to a muggle restaurant either. She did enjoy the pizza though, the coke as well after a few careful sips. She even suggested teaching the Hogwarts house elves how to make pizza. Harry thought it was an interesting idea, maybe he could ask Timmy for help.

After lunch Daphne pulled Harry to the lazy river again. Apparently it wasn't smart to do slides just after eating. But eventually they returned to the more interesting attractions. Harry almost managed to get Daphne into 'The Abyss'.

It was after seven before they left the park and joined Harry's parents and the other marauders for dinner in a nearby restaurant. Daphne immediately looked for another pizza. Meanwhile Harry turned to his parents: 'So, no sign of death eaters all day?'

'Nope,' Lily smiled, 'The only time our wards flared up was when a Canadian wizarding family showed up. We told them we were British special services and that we were doing routine checks on all incoming wizards because the British minister was in the park today.'

'And you always told me I shouldn't lie,' Harry grinned.

'Well, I didn't say it was the current minister,' Lily shrugged.

'You think I'll be minister someday?' Harry wondered.

'No, not really,' Lily replied, 'I don't think you're the type. Although I'm sure you could take the spot if you wanted to. After you kill Voldemort that is. But I wouldn't be surprised if Daphne will run for minister sometime.'

'Yeah, maybe,' Harry agreed. He felt somewhat relieved when he noticed that Daphne had missed the entire discussion. Instead, she had been busy convincing the marauders that they should try pizza as well. Remus was the only one that argued that he already had pizza before and that he much preferred a nice steak. But the other two eventually gave in.

Then Daphne suddenly smiled. 'Oh, I totally forgot to say thanks to all of you. I mean, I know you went through a lot of effort for this. And we really enjoyed ourselves. It was nice to act like normal teenagers for one day.'

'Yeah, definitely,' Harry agreed. 'Only thing that I wondered about, what are Neville and the others doing?'

'They are visiting another water park in the US right now. Together with Neville's and Hermione's parents,' James replied, 'We figured it would be nice for the two of you to have a day with just the two of you.'

"Oh, thanks. But that means you didn't get to explore the park?' Harry wondered.

'What? You think we needed five days for this ward?' James grinned, 'We've been into the park twice, had to see if it was a suitable place for you.'

'Yeah, and you wanted to go to that stupid Abyss slide again,' Lily added, which made both teenagers chuckle.

_A/N: Bit of a filler chapter, but I wanted to show that not all of Harry's summer was dedicated to training. Just most of it ;) _


	69. Umbridge's arrival

**Umbridge's arrival**

'Did she seriously just interrupt Dumbledore?' Harry whispered to Neville when their new defence professor started to talk in a silly sweet voice.

'Looks that way,' Neville shrugged. It seemed like he had decided to ignore Umbridge after her first two lines, just like Harry and most of the student population. 'Not a good way to make friends at Hogwarts. Anyway, did your parents also warn you about her?'

'Yeah, apparently she has a lot of influence at the ministry. Dad told me not to draw too much attention since it could hurt our family's position. Or at least, our side… or something like that,' Harry replied.

'Something like that, yeah,' Neville grinned back at him.

'Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating,' Dumbledore said, Harry and Neville immediately stopped chatting. 'Now, as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held…'

'Yes, it certainly was illuminating,' said Hermione in a low voice.

'It was?' Harry wondered.

'There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle,' said Hermione grimly. 'How about: 'progress for progress's sake must be discouraged'? How about: 'pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited'?'

'Well, what does that mean?' asked Neville.

'I'll tell you what it means,' said Hermione through gritted teeth. 'It means the Ministry's interfering at Hogwarts.'

'Well, we knew that already. I mean, since that stupid rule that kept James away from Hogwarts,' Neville shrugged. 'But anyway, we should go and gather the first-years.'

'Oh, right!' Hermione jumped up immediately. Neville followed a bit slower.

'I'm still somewhat surprised that you didn't make prefect, Harry,' Susan said when the two new prefects were out of earshot. 'I mean, I know Neville is going to do a great job, but you are the leader of the DA and all that.'

'Oh well, I don't really mind. Enough on my head already, you know?' actually, that was the main reason that he wasn't a prefect now. Dumbledore had visited Lionfire Hall a few days before the Hogwarts letters arrived. They had discussed their plans to have Harry duel Dumbledore, but that was delayed as well now that Umbridge was prowling around.

Still, the headmaster had asked Harry if he wanted to be a prefect, or if he preferred to focus on all his other duties and pastimes instead. He had quickly agreed that he could do without the badge. And like Susan said, Neville would be a great perfect. He saw no reason to tell anyone about Dumbledore's visit though, every now and then Neville could be terribly unsure about himself. So he didn't need to get any stupid ideas about being second choice as a prefect. Not that Dumbledore had told Harry he would definitely get the badge if he wanted it, but it felt that way.

'I guess,' Susan nodded. 'Anyway, back to the common room? Or are you going to meet with Daphne first?'

'No, she wanted to head to the Slytherin common room immediately. Prepare for their DA meetings,' Harry replied while shaking his head. Daphne and Tracey seemed determined to start up the Slytherin DA as soon as possible. He guessed that was a smart idea, but right now it gave him another reason to dislike their new defence professor.

They were 'lucky' enough to have their first defence lesson on their first day. After a boring history class and a very difficult potions class they arrived in the defence classroom. 'Well, good afternoon!' professor Umbridge said, when finally the whole class had sat down.

A few people mumbled 'good afternoon' in reply.

'Tut, tut,' said Professor Umbridge. 'That won't do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply 'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge'. One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!'

'Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,' they chanted back at her.

'There, now,' said Professor Umbridge sweetly. 'That wasn't too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please.'

Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order 'wands away' had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting.

Harry shoved his wand back inside his bag and pulled out quill, ink and parchment. Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once: Defence Against the Dark Arts A Return to Basic Principles

'Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn't it?' stated Professor Umbridge, turning to face the class with her hands clasped neatly in front of her. 'The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your OWL year.'

'You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centred, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following, please.'

She rapped the blackboard again; the first message vanished and was replaced by the 'Course Aims'.

For a couple of minutes the room was full of the sound of scratching quills on parchment. When everyone had copied down Professor Umbridge's course aims she asked, 'Has everybody got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?'

There was a dull murmur of assent throughout the class.

'I think we'll try that again,' said Professor Umbridge. 'When I ask you a question, I should like you to reply, 'Yes, Professor Umbridge', or 'No, Professor Umbridge'. So: has everyone got a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?'

'Yes, Professor Umbridge,' rang through the room, Harry wondered if Umbridge really believed that all of them were only five years old.

'Good,' said Professor Umbridge. 'I should like you to turn to page five and read 'Chapter One, Basics for Beginners'. There will be no need to talk.'

Professor Umbridge left the blackboard and settled herself in the chair behind the teacher's desk, observing them all closely with those pouchy toad's eyes. Harry turned to page five of his copy of Defensive Magical Theory and started to read.

It was desperately dull, quite as bad as listening to Professor Binns. This was an achievement in itself.

He felt his concentration sliding away from him; he had soon read the same line half a dozen times without taking in more than the first few words. Several silent minutes passed. Next to him, Ron was absent-mindedly turning his quill over and over in his fingers, staring at the same spot on the page. Harry looked right and received a surprise to shake him out of his torpor. Hermione had not even opened her copy of Defensive Magical Theory. She was staring fixedly at Professor Umbridge with her hand in the air.

Harry could not remember Hermione ever neglecting to read when instructed to, or indeed resisting the temptation to open any book that came under her nose. He looked at her enquiringly, but she merely shook her head slightly to indicate that she was not about to answer questions, and continued to stare at Professor Umbridge, who was looking just as resolutely in another direction.

After several more minutes had passed, however, Harry was not the only one watching Hermione. The chapter they had been instructed to read was so tedious that more and more people were choosing to watch Hermione's mute attempt to catch Professor Umbridge's eye rather than struggle on with 'Basics for Beginners'. When more than half the class were staring at Hermione rather than at their books, Professor Umbridge seemed to decide that she could ignore the situation no longer.

'Did you want to ask something about the chapter, dear?' she asked Hermione, as though she had only just noticed her.

'Not about the chapter, no,' said Hermione.

'Well, we're reading just now,' said Professor Umbridge, showing her small pointed teeth. 'If you have other queries we can deal with them at the end of class.'

'I've got a query about your course aims,' said Hermione.

Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows. 'And your name is?'

'Hermione Granger,' said Hermione.

'Well, Miss Granger, I think the course aims are perfectly clear if you read them through carefully,' said Professor Umbridge in a voice of determined sweetness.

'Well, I don't,' said Hermione bluntly. 'There's nothing written up there about using defensive spells.'

There was a short silence in which many members of the class turned their heads to frown at the three course aims still written on the blackboard. 'Using defensive spells?' Professor Umbridge repeated with a little laugh. 'Why, I can't imagine any situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell, Miss Granger. You surely aren't expecting to be attacked during class?'

'We're not going to use magic?' Ron exclaimed loudly.

'Students raise their hands when they wish to speak in my class, Mr.?'

'Weasley,' said Ron, thrusting his hand into the air.

Professor Umbridge, smiling still more widely, turned her back on him. Harry and Hermione immediately raised their hands too. Professor Umbridge's pouchy eyes lingered on Harry for a moment before she addressed Hermione.

'Yes, Miss Granger? You wanted to ask something else?'

'Yes,' said Hermione. 'Surely the whole point of Defence Against the Dark Arts is to practise defensive spells?'

'Are you a Ministry-trained educational expert, Miss Granger?' asked Professor Umbridge, in her falsely sweet voice.

'Thank Merlin, no,' Harry whispered.

'No, but-'

'Well then, I'm afraid you are not qualified to decide what the 'whole point' of any class is. Wizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new programme of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way -'

'What use is that?' said Harry. 'If we're going to be attacked, it won't be in a-'

'Hand, Mr. Potter!' sang Professor Umbridge.

Harry thrust his fist in the air. Again, Professor Umbridge promptly turned away from him, but now several other people had their hands up, too.

'And your name is?' Professor Umbridge said to Dean.

'Dean Thomas.'

'Well, Mr. Thomas?'

'Well, it's like Harry said, isn't it?' said Dean. 'If we're going to be attacked, it won't be risk free.'

'I repeat,' said Professor Umbridge, smiling in a very irritating fashion at Dean, 'do you expect to be attacked during my classes?'

'No, but -'

Professor Umbridge talked over him. 'I do not wish to criticize the way things have been run in this school,' she said, an unconvincing smile stretching her wide mouth, 'but you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, very irresponsible indeed ‐ not to mention,' she gave a nasty little laugh, 'extremely dangerous half‐breeds.'

'If you mean Professor Lupin,' piped up Dean angrily, 'he was the best we ever-'

'Hand, Mr. Thomas! As I was saying, you have been introduced to spells that have been complex, inappropriate to your age group and potentially lethal. You have been frightened into believing that you are likely to meet Dark attacks every other day -ʹ

'No we haven't,' Hermione said, 'we just -'

'Your hand is not up, Miss Granger!'

Hermione put up her hand. Professor Umbridge turned away from her.

'It is my understanding that my predecessor not only performed illegal curses in front of you, he actually performed them on you.'

'Well, he turned out to be a maniac, didn't he?' said Dean hotly. 'Mind you, we still learned loads.'

'Your hand is not up, Mr. Thomas!' trilled Professor Umbridge. 'Now, it is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about. And your name is?' she added, staring at Parvati, whose hand had just shot up.

'Parvati Patil, and isn't there a practical bit in our Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL? Aren't we supposed to show that we can actually do the counter‐curses and things?'

'As long as you have studied the theory hard enough, there is no reason why you should not be able to perform the spells under carefully controlled examination conditions,' said Professor Umbridge dismissively.

'Without ever practising them beforehand?' said Parvati incredulously. 'Are you telling us that the first time we'll get to do the spells will be during our exam?'

'I repeat, as long as you have studied the theory hard enough you should be fine,' Umbridge replied, to a vast number of unbelieving frowns. Then she finally looked at Harry, who had not lowered his fist the whole time.

'And what good's theory going to be in the real world?' Harry wondered.

Professor Umbridge looked up. 'This is school, Mr. Potter, not the real world,' she said softly.

'Isn't the purpose of a school to prepare us for the real world though?' Harry asked, he tried to stay polite. After all, he had promised his parents not to cause too much trouble with Umbridge. But he could hardly ignore her.

'There are no dangers out there that require dangerous spellcasting at Hogwarts,' Umbridge calmly replied.

This was such utter nonsense that Harry didn't immediately know how to reply. Dean took his silence to shout: 'That's ridiculous! What about that attack during the third task last year?'

'Hand, Mr. Thomas! And detention tonight,' Umbridge snapped.

For a moment Harry wanted to retrieve his wand to curse the pink horror, but he restrained himself. Just like the rest of his classmates, who all kept staring at their books while fighting against drowsiness for the remainder of the class.

'The common room is too small,' Susan dryly commented to Harry while all Gryffindors were trying to find some space to exchange spells with their opponents.

'No, really?' Harry replied before shaking his head. 'Sorry. I guess we'll have to divide the house in two and have two meetings each week.'

'Split by year? Or split each year in half?' Susan wondered.

Harry considered both options for a few moments. 'By year I guess. The differences between first and seventh-years are getting to big anyway. We might as well make a group of fifth to seventh and one of first to fourth.'

'Sounds fine to me,' Susan nodded. 'I guess that means two of us will be at each meeting? It would be best to rotate a bit, but I think you should work with the fifth-years and higher all the time.'

'Huh? Why?'

'Because you will learn more that way. And like it or not, you are the one that needs to be prepared,' Susan replied in such a firm tone that Harry didn't want to argue with her. Beside that, he guessed she had a point. 'Anyway, you have a nice idea to quieten this unruly mob?'

Harry grinned while he admired the full-blown chaos in the Gryffindor common room. Before he could work out a plan their head of house suddenly walked into the common room. 'What is the meaning of all this noise? I could hear you in my office,' she snapped.

Almost immediately everybody stopped and Harry used the sudden silence to reply. 'We decided to do our DA meetings by house, now that Umbridge doesn't allow our regular DA meetings. But I guess we'll have to split in two groups, the common room is a bit small.'

'I see,' McGonagall nodded. She looked thoughtful for a few seconds. 'Good work, I guess. Just use silencing charms next time. We don't want professor Umbridge to find out about this while she walks through the hallways,' Harry was sure that he was not the only one who felt surprised by McGonagalls unspoken support of their actions. Usually, she always supported other professors. He was less surprised about who she turned to next. 'Mr. And Mr. Weasley, -yes I mean the two of you, so stop looking at your younger brother- what is this?'

Fred and George looked at the pile of papers that she waved around. Eventually they both shrugged and Fred replied: 'It looks like our transfiguration essay, why?'

'Because it's brilliant. Care to explain why your homework is suddenly so much better?'

'We worked on that during the summer,' George answered.

'It was pure coincidence that we could use it for our first essay,' Fred added.

'And most of the groundwork is actually from Hermione,' George said.

'I've no idea what they did,' Hermione quickly said when McGonagall suddenly turned to her.

'They devised a way to transfigure multiple objects at once by using another object,' she quickly browsed through the papers. 'Ah yes, by snapping a fake wand in two. Their idea is that the hair colour of every person in the area will turn red and gold. You don't know anything about that?'

'Well, no. Tracey and I, -Tracey Davis I mean, from Slytherin- worked out a way to transfigure multiple objects at once a few years ago. But we never thought about using items to start the transfiguration. Isn't changing hair colour a charm though? Although I guess there is some overlap… Anyway, it does offer some possibilities,' Hermione admitted while gazing at the thick pile of paper in McGonagall's hands.

'It's only a copy Hermione, you can have our notes,' Fred smiled.

'In fact, we were going to discuss things with you and Tracey, but we are just working out some details,' George said.

McGonagall shook her head. 'That may be, but from now on I'll expect this level of quality for all your essays, understood?'

'We'll try our best,' George calmly replied. McGonagall's disbelieving look was hardly flattering, nor alone.

'What? It is our NEWT year after all,' Fred said.

'And certain potential investors explained to us why we should score as many NEWTs as we can,' George explained.

'Yeah, and with high grades,' Fred added before sadly shaking his head. 'So that means more homework and less pranks.'

George, who had looked like he was attending a funeral after Fred's words, suddenly lighted up. 'Beside Umbridge's class of course. That's useless anyway.'

'Definitely,' Fred smiled. 'Beside that, it's the perfect location to contact the market for our joke shop. It's not like we can interrupt anything important during that class.'

McGonagall shook her head once more, 'Well, I'm not sure if I agree with your reasons. But I'm looking forward to two new model students,' Fred and George looked horrified. 'Anyway, I'll let you carry on. And remember, silencing charms.'

After she left everybody started to complain to Fred and George though, they all found it unfair that pranks would be focused on the seventh-year DADA classes. Fred and George only smirked.

_A/N: Way too slow update, sorry about that. But it seemed like pretty much everything that could delay an update happened during the last few weeks. I'll try and return to weekly updates, but I have the feeling that I said that before during this story;)_

_Anyway, I'm sure you noticed that I copied part of canon to describe the sorting and the first DADA class, although there are a few big differences. Mainly because Harry is not that messed-up without the whole fiasco after the third task and the ensuing Prophet-campaign. _


End file.
